You may haven’t heard of Luxottica, but you most definitely know their products. As the world’s largest eyewear company, they control over 80% of the major eyewear brands. The companies in the group include such well-known brands as Ray-Ban, Oakley, Vogue-Eyewear, Persol, Oliver Peoples, Alain Mikli and Arnette. And they’re teaming-up with Google (or that’s the other way round) to make Google Glass even cooler.
Luxottica obviously knows how to build, distribute and sell eyewear products, and as part of this partnership – they’ll bring design and manufacturing expertise to the mix. In addition, Luxottica’s retail and wholesale distribution channels will serve Google well when Glass becomes available to more people down the road.
You shouldn’t expect to see Glass on your favorite Oakleys or Ray-Bans tomorrow, but something like that is in the pipeline, have no doubts about it.
Google seems to be making all the right deals and its smart glasses will most definitely emerge as a gold standard. We’re not sure why other tech giants are seemingly passive in this market. I would expect Microsoft to go on a shopping spree and acquire Vuzix or some other company making this technology, but alas – we’re not hearing anything of that sort…