The other day we’ve told you about Lenovo’s patent related to smart glasses. Looks like the Chinese company, which also happens to be the world’s largest PC company, won’t be pursuing its own product, and will — at least initially — offer Vuzix’ glasses. Said device will be co-branded as a Vuzix/Lenovo solution and will be marketed across China as part of Lenovo’s New Business Development (NBD) brand.
The agreement between the two parties calls for Vuzix to be the exclusive third party provider of smart glasses to Lenovo for the industrial and commercial markets in China and allows for the expansion into other markets and products. Vuzix has worked closely with Lenovo engineers to create a new M100 Smart Glasses specifically tailored for the Chinese marketplace with features that include Chinese language, voice recognition, mapping and support for some other domestic cloud based services.
While Lenovo gets a quick ticket to the smart glasses market, Vuzix gets direct access to China.
Lenovo will begin immediate marketing of the co-branded Vuzix M100 Smart Glasses, with sales shipments commencing in early September and more broad based sales activities across China growing through the Fall of 2014.
I used to argue that Microsoft should acquire Vuzix; perhaps some other tech giant would find the company interesting, as well. Lenovo seems well suited for such deal; what do you think?