Google is buying a mysterious smartwatch technology from Fossil for $40 million. Fossil Group has announced that they have settled an agreement to sell Google some secret smartwatch technology which is still under development for a whopping $40 million.
According to Greg McKelvey, EVP and chief strategy and digital officer of the Fossil Group, the agreement will eventually result in the launch of a new product innovation that’s not yet hit the market. He said, “It’s based on something out of our timeline, it’s new to the market technology and we think it’s a product that has features and benefits that aren’t in the category today”.
The deal involves intellectual property related to that technology, as well as some of the members from the Fossil’s R&D team members joining Google. However the deal isn’t all about being Google and Fossil, a new product line is coming with this technology onboard and it’s not limited to Google and Fossil. It seems the search giant wants the tech to make it available to all of its partners in the Wear OS space.
Stacey Burr, VP of Product Management of Wear OS at Google said,
“We saw some technology that they were developing that we thought could be brought out in a more expansive way if Google had that technology, and was not only able to continue to use it with Fossil but bring it to other partners in the ecosystem. It’s about bringing great features to the widest numbers of on-the-go consumers.”
The transaction between Google and the Fossil Group will be finalized this month. What do you think of the new wearable technology? What’s coming?
