Why Is Fuelband A High Cost Sideline In Nike?

P, Nike (Nike), which is a leading product in the nascent market of wearable health tracker, is perfectly reasonable.

Its Nike+ FuelBand is as comfortable as your sneakers embrace your feet.

This wristband tracks the steps and pmits the relevant data to the NikeFuel counting system for analysis.

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< p > however, CNET technology information network recently reported that the sportswear manufacturer has decided to end it all.

According to reports, Nike sacked most of its FuelBand staff and plans to stop producing wearable hardware, including the lightweight version of FuelBand originally planned for release this fall.

Nike has confirmed to Re/Code that its digital sports department has made a small number of layoffs.

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< p > Nike spokesman declined to comment on whether Nike will launch new products after SE SE.

"We will continue to provide support for current hardware."

The spokesman said on the phone.

He also said Nike will issue a new color matching FuelBand SE in the next few weeks.

"Now we are doing this work."

When asked if there were other devices available after FuelBand SE, he replied, "no comment."

Considering that Nike has no obvious commitment to the future wearable devices, it seems that the company is indeed pulling out the wristband hardware manufacturing field.

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"P", at first glance, this is like a complaint about wearable technology.

In the past few years, this highly publicized industry has failed to attract the general public.

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< p > the difficulties faced by wearable devices include stimulating customers' enthusiasm, so that they will not throw the health tracker into the drawer after three months' use, and create products that are fashionable and enough to produce a desire to buy.

Nike has conducted a consumer behavior survey (which many Silicon Valley technology giants haven't done in this area), which makes the company a favorable position in developing the wearable device market.

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< p > however, Nike, which sells 120 million pairs of shoes every year and has a revenue of 25 billion US dollars in 2013, may have found that FuelBand is a costly sideline.

The following three factors may be at the heart of Nike Management: < /p >

< p > 1. war looms: wearable devices are already challenging industries, and competition will become more intense as other big competitors intervene.

It is widely believed that apple (Apple) will launch iWatch later this year, with a major focus on health tracking.

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< p > Apple CEO Tim Cook (Tim Cook), who wore FuelBand on many public occasions, is also a director of Nike.

It can be assumed that Nike is showing up to apple, one of the largest technology companies in the world, to maintain close ties.

According to CNET science and technology information network, Nike is turning to the software field, and iWatch may be a bigger and better platform than Nike's own hardware.

"Apple is not smart enough to compete with hardware."

Daniel Matt, a wearable device analyst at Canalys Research, a market research firm, said (Daniel Matte).

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Rajeev Chad (Rajeev Chand), boutique investment bank Rutberg & Co., agrees with the above statement. < p >

"Competition in this field is very intense...

Everyone is watching Apple's action. "

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< p > 2. highly complex business: in terms of technology, supply chain and marketing, < a href= "//www.sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp" > shoes < /a > and health tracker are totally different two businesses.

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The success formula known as Nike P, which combines the design and marketing of sports shoes, is quite different from many other successful factors in the wearable field.

These factors include software stack, user interface design, especially data management.

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< p > smart Fitbit is trying to gather data from its own tracker to become an analysis tool.

This means that when a large company purchases a Fitbit health tracker for employees as part of the employee health plan, its human resources department can monitor the health and activity of a large number of workers.

This is one of the fastest growing businesses in Fitbit, but there is no sign that a href= "//www.sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp" > Nike < /a "has made the same success in selling its wristbands to the employer in bulk.

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< p > a data management company dealing with a href= "//www.sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp" > employee health < /a > data reveals that they have rejected many health tracking devices for their employees' health plan, including poor data management, for example, Fitbit.

Data management is an increasingly important part of the wearable market, because participants must cooperate with third parties.

The Re/Code website quoted Nike insiders as saying that the sportswear manufacturer "gained a lot of data, but did not know how to deal with the data.

They did not develop the market. "

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< p > 3. competition for talent: if Nike, based in Oregon, wants to improve its tracking capability, it must find outstanding hardware, software, cloud computing and big data engineers.

"It's hard to find and retain these talents in Oregon."

Chander Chawla, a consultant on the wearable market to wind companies and manufacturers, said Chand Chawla.

No wonder Intel (Intel) and apple have removed some of the top designers of FuelBand from Nike in the past few years.

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