If you’re the CEO of a watch company, you likely watched the announcement of the Apple Watch with a mixture of optimism and fear. Optimism because Apple just made watches cool again in a market where many people haven’t worn one for years. Fear because most of those who now have a renewed interest in watches aren’t going to buy yours.
Guess Watches CEO Cindy Livingston put a brave face on it with a letter welcoming Tim Cook to the watch industry (full version below) as she announced the company plans to make a smartwatch of its own …
Livingston talks about the changes the watch industry has already gone through over the decades – “the introduction of quartz movements, the rise and fall of calculator watches, digitals, analogue-digitals and many many brands, both big and small” – and said that the company was looking forward to “the launch of our own connected timepiece for GUESS… Powered by MARTIAN.”
Martian launched its own smartwatch, the Passport, at CES back in January – check out our review here.
Her claim that “we’re happy to have another true brand innovator in our industry” has that clenched-teeth feel to it, but given that iPhone owners are unlikely to buy what will presumably be an Android-powered device, it’s a clever way to let Android users know there’s another option on the way.
Apple has not yet given a launch date for its watch, stating only that it will go on sale “in early 2015.” The Apple Watch will be sold in three models – the Apple Watch, the Apple Watch Sport and the Apple Watch Edition – with prices starting at $349 and likely to go well into four figures.
The full text of Livingston’s letter to Cook can be seen below.
LETTER TO CEO OF APPLE, FROM CEO OF GUESS WATCHES
Dear Mr. Cook:
I wanted to write to you and welcome you to the Watch Industry and also offer my personal thanks to you.
As one of the largest fashion watch brands in the world, we have been around for more than 30 years. In the early 80’s, there was really only SWATCH (the brand) and GUESS Watches. At that time, we had many critics who thought we were crazy. No one thought that anyone would want this new type of “novelty” timepiece. They believed that the only “real” alternatives were Swiss mechanicals or traditional quartz timepieces. Fortunately for us, consumers thought differently!
We are part of an old and proud industry. Every year we’ve experienced change in some way. Over these years, we have seen the introduction of quartz movements, the rise and fall of calculator watches, digitals, analogue-digitals and many many brands, both big and small. It seems that the test of time has shown that the wrist is an obvious place for both function and fashion.
Fast-forward to today and the world has changed. The proliferation of smartphones and the demand of consumers for round-the-clock connectivity have changed the way people access time. This has caused an understandable fear and challenge in our industry (even if no one likes to admit it).
We personally welcome this new challenge to remain relevant to our young, sexy and adventurous consumers who see as much importance in the device they carry and the messaging app they use, as the clothing and accessory brands they buy.
Over the past year, there has been dramatic speculation of the future of “wearables” and Apple’s entre into this segment. This week, you delivered! Just as we had in the early 80’s, there are naysayers and believers. I, for one, am a fan! Your innovation and attention to detail is spectacular.
In today’s connected world, consumers deserve the next level of combining fashion and function. We’ve always been much more than a watch. Now, we too are going to take that concept even further. As we look forward to the launch of our own connected timepiece for GUESS… “Powered by MARTIAN”, we’re happy to have another true brand innovator in our industry that confirms the wrist as the dominant place for self-expression.
Congratulations.
Cindy Livingston
President & CEO
GUESS WATCHES
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Is this supposed to be catchy and go viral, or something?
Reminds me of the old Apple print ad to IBM that said, “Welcome IBM, Seriously.” I didn’t even know guess made watches, I thought it was just clothing.
I think high end phone makers shouldn’t worry at all, Apple will grab the laggards and normal people that don’t wear watches and the high end people will continue to grab the people that love high end watches. It’s good for everyone.
Just like the tiny niche market for classic cars, Apple isn’t going to release anything that impedes the high-end luxury watch segment. Those people aren’t looking for new features or smart/connected watches. They want the same thing over and over again with slight tweaks and a new Edition name each year or two years.
They also barely keep alive the companies that make them.
The AppleWatch will do to all watches and fitness bands what the iPhone did to all phones. Make them completely irrelevant until a competitor with a lot of money is able to rip off the technology successfully enough…..a couple of years from now.
“a competitor with a lot of money is able to rip off the technology successfully enough”
That’s a really long way of spelling ‘Samsung.’
Indeed. I have found this whole Watch thing to be quite an eye opener in regards the world of luxury watches. It seems that there is a whole community of people who regularly pay between $2,000 and $5,000 bucks for absolutely hideous, clunky watches that have some kind of cache based on their “lineage” or that of the company producing it. Absolutely f*cking bizarre!
Check out this ugly piece of crap watch that people are actually paying $4,700 for. It’s by no means unusual either, there are many of these watches to be found and apparently many suckers lining up to buy them.
http://www.selectism.com/2013/04/24/tudor-heritage-chrono-blue-at-basel-world-2013/
Yea its not that weird though. There’s a following for everything. Including ugly expensive watches. Its small though. Apple is looking to sell AppleWatch to as many iPhone owners as possible. Hundreds of millions. The size of the market itself is Apple’s only competition. They know they’re going to do good with this one. The only question is how good. Can we sell one to all iPhone users? 3/4 of them? 1/2 of them? 1/4 of them? Any of those thresholds would instantly make it the single most popular wearable technology in the world, thanks to sheer numbers.
How old are you? Nineteen? Too young to have worn a watch before iPhone came out? There’s a whole segment of the population that wants to pay thousands of dollars for mechanical watches. Those are people in their 50s with boatloads of money. They are the same people who drive Bentleys and Mezaratis. They have more money than they will ever be able to spend, so they are looking for expensive toys. These same people are not very proficient with technology, so the fewer features those toys have, the better it is for them. They live in a different world, and they want to enjoy reliable and expensive things in their lives. They couldn’t care less for a smart watch, be it made by Apple or Motorola. They would never put a watch on their wrist that costs less than a few grand. They also have offspring, to whom Apple will market their gold edition Apple Watch.
“We at Guess welcome our new “I-Overlords” :-)
Is she trying to catch a partnership??
Guess makes watches?
oxymoron?
Apple has such a major impact in the industry no matter what they do. Samsung releases a smartwatch and everyone deems it gimmicky and not worth talking about. Apple announces a watch and the entire fashion industry goes nuts, all the way from Vogue’s approval to Guest’d letter to Tim Cook. The same happened with NFC payment, nobody gives 2 f#### about Google Wallet now the same can’t be said about Apple paid with the majority of financial institutions on board. Apple takes its time to incorporate but when they do, it changes the technological landscape.
What you say is true, but you ignore the possibility that the Apple product is actually *better* than the others and thus actually *deserve* the kudos they get.
For instance, both the Moto360 and the Apple Watch “measure your heartbeat” so on paper and in a lot of reviews that is treated as a “wash,” the same feature on both devices. In reality however, the Watch records your heartbeat continually in the background with (reportedly), great accuracy and requires you to do nothing but wear the watch. The Moto360 requires instead that you raise your wrist, select the feature, then keep your wrist completely still for a matter of two or three seconds, and then it will give you a one-time reading of your heartbeat which is (again reportedly) reasonably accurate, but not always so. It also fails sometimes and requires the user to try again.
These two features are clearly not the same at all, even though both phones on paper are saying they have the same feature.
“Watch records your heartbeat continually in the background” Thus part of the short battery life problem. I’d be more that happy to raise my wrist and activate the feature for longer battery life.
@Joe chelena: re: “the short battery life problem” … You realise that you are just making that up right?
You are complaining about a failure of the devices battery life, when we don’t even know what the battery life is. You’ve accepted that the Watch has a “problem” based on nothing but a bunch of wild speculation from people who know nothing about the device.
You might want to wait until we actually know what the battery life of the product is, before you start complaining about it. All we have heard so far indicates that it will get about the same kind of battery life and any smartphone or smart watch, or possibly better. It hardly seems like anything any rational person would complain about.
how does this letter even get out?
I was wondering the same thing…
9to5Mac makes it look like a press release, but I don’t think it is. I’m curious how this CEO -> CEO communication would get spread too. It would seem rude for Apple to release it after reading it.
She released it
Omg u can’t be serious. Google the term “open letter”. Wtf
Since when does Guess make watches? Like Fossil making watches? Taking a cheap quartz movement and sticking your logo on the face doesn’t make you a watch maker.
Well, she found out how to get her 15 minutes of fame.
Guess what?
Guess brand, a joke. Cheap cheap cheap and pure trash. Who buys Guess product anyway……???
Cindy Livingston is the global President and CEO of Sequel AG, a Timex Group company. Sequel AG has the exclusive distribution rights for GUESS and Gc Watches worldwide doing business in over 100 countries.
http://www.timexgroup.com/profile/executive-leadership/cindy-livingston.html
I’m reminded of bending the knee in Game of Thrones
Optimism? I smell a whole lot of fear. Too much babbling in that letter for it to be optimism.
lame
I have a Guess watch that I got as a gift. I have a few other watches that I actually prefer, but the Guess one is the only one that consistently gets compliments. I’m not sure why.
Did Tim Cook respond to the letter?
Guess welcoming Apple to the business of watches is like Hyundai welcoming Tesla to the business of automobile manufacturing.
The apple watches will slowly go away just like the Gear watches from samsung. https://www.ilovemywatch.net
This has to be a parody of Apple’s IBM Letter in 1981. This has to be fake.
Ms Livingston,
Here’s some free pointers from a product engineer (in my mid 30s).
Take the Apple Watch and:
– remove the touch sensors and retina display. Put an ePaper display in there or any display with similar power efficiency that can do a few colors only.
– navigation interface: Apple got the crown right. This is something I’ve been recommending a long way back. Keeps our paws off the tiny screen most of the time and that’s the goal. Either keep the crown or have the outer bezel (in a round watch) be the “scroll-wheel”. Then you need two physical buttons. An “ok/accept” and a “back” button.
– keep the health sensor(s). Even a simple heart rate sensor makes us feel good in the sense that it’s better from no tracking at all. Cram an oximeter in there and you have a winner (hint: there are simpler and less bulky configurations for a heart rate sensor. It doesn’t need to be facing our skin and take measurements all the time)
– remove the mic. Please! This is 2014 and we all have bluetooth headsets and wired hands-free units. Dick Tracy is so 80s
– no “haptic feedback” please. Exchanging smileys and heart beats with other watch wearers is a total gimmick. I guess Apple feels repressed about Ping’s failure and this is its metamorphosis. And it’s gonna FAIL
– allow the device to give discreet notifications through beeps / vibration
– allow us to see who’s calling, accept/decline calls (routed to our BT headset or whatever) and preview incoming SMS, Viber etc.
– give it plenty of battery life. If it’s frugal enough to support charging through motion, that’s another plus
– make it waterproof to 10m. Easily doable without the health sensor(s), might take some engineering with them along
GUESS what Cindy.
You suck.