WILL 'THE APPRENTICE' ADD TECH BELL WEATHER TO LIST OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS?

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WILL 'THE APPRENTICE' ADD TECH BELL WEATHER TO LIST OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS?
12 April 2005 - Venture Development Corporation

Thursday night's episode of 'The Apprentice' cast a very bright light on the emerging markets for clothing and accessories incorporating advanced computing, communications and digital entertainment functions. American Eagle Outfitters, NBC and Donald Trump showed again how good they are at tapping into some of the next big things. In this case, it was the assignment to design wearable systems or technology-enabled clothing and accessories.

The timing could not be better. A handful of industries and literally hundreds of companies are investing in the development of next-generation wearable solutions that integrate in clothing or other personal accessories, many advanced features of the most popular mobile electronic devices available today.

But the question remains: Will the consumer markets' voracious appetite for trendy fashions on the one hand and powerful digital tools and toys on the other result in significant, sustainable demand for wearable technologies?

'Our best thinking on the topics of wearables and their key enabling technologies leads us to believe that a number of scalable consumer market opportunities will reach their growth stage by the end of 2007,' states Christopher Rezendes, Vice President at tech research and strategy firm Venture Development Corporation. 'We have conducted a number of proprietary and syndicated research programs on these technologies and their early applications. Based on this work, our teams are convinced that a number of market segments with premium performance requirements will purchase clothing and accessories with integrated computing, control and communications capabilities. One key is understanding each segment's definition of performance.'

According to Rick Barnard, a Director at VDC, 'Today, the largest market for the earliest versions of wearables - wrist, belt or shoulder-mounted components - are in the mobile workforce market. Our recent work includes validation of a number of technical approaches to develop the next generation of wearable solutions that are much smaller, lighter and powerful, yet more highly integrated and almost completely non-invasive.'

Barnard and his team believe that medical, military and certain safety markets encompass a significant share of the near-term dollars available for investment in the next generation of smaller, lighter, more powerful and highly integrated wearable solutions. In these mission-critical applications, reliability is the number-one system performance requirement.

The next essential step for wearable solution developers searching for larger consumer markets is the focus on affordability.

Regarding the teams and their ideas on 'The Apprentice', Barnard notes, 'Team Magna defined a solution that focused on a number of the core applications in wearable consumer solutions: information, entertainment, and communication. Their solution hit the mark in presenting itself as an affordable platform for wearable solutions that enable 15-25 year-olds to support their desire to take a high-quality infotainment system anywhere, and remove another set of challenges to their ever-growing need to stay connected and communicate with less effort.'

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About: Venture Development Corporation
Venture Development Corporation (VDC) is an independent technology market research and strategy consulting firm that specializes in a number of industrial, embedded, defense and niche enterprise IT markets. VDC has been operating since 1971, when graduates of the Harvard Business School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology founded the firm. Today, we employ a talented collection of analysts and consultants who offer a rare combination of expertise in the market research process; experience in technology product and program management, and formal training in engineering and marketing. VDC's clients include thousands of the largest and fastest growing tech suppliers in the world and the most successful investors participating in the markets we cover.

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