Worcester Business Journal

www.wbjournal.com March 16, 2015 • Worcester Business Journal 15 countrybank.com • 800.322.8233 Belchertown • Brimfield • Charlton • Leicester • Ludlow • Palmer • Paxton Ware • West Brookfield • Wilbraham MEMBER FDIC | MEMBER DIF | Your Company Deserves Moore Meet Bryan Moore: Our Small Business Banking Expert If you are searching for world-class business banking solutions that come with personal guidance and proven strategies, look no further than Country Bank's Bryan Moore. He'll put his years of expertise to work for your business and connect you with financial tools designed to help your company grow. A Powerful Presence in Central Massachusetts For advertising information contact: Mark Murray, Associate Publisher 508.755.8004 x227 m @wbjournal.com The Worcester Business Journal A Fact of Business Life in Central Mass! murray >> T E C H N O LO G Y Westborough's Kopin hopes to close in on payoff for wearables H ow many times a day do you pull out your phone? One study, in 2013, found that the average smartphone user swipes to unlock 110 times a day. With smartwatches entering the market, it's getting even easier for us to get the data we want in less than a second. Westborough-based Kopin Corp. says it won't end there. The 30-year-old tech- nology company has made a major bet that the next stop in constant connectiv- ity will be computers that live in your glasses. "Watches are going to mature some- what this year," said Stuart Nixdorff, Kopin's senior vice president of sales and marketing. "After that it's a small step to glasses." The most-watched head-worn data device, Google Glass, got off to a some- what rocky start, and Google discontin- ued production of the prototype product for consumers at the start of this year. But work on the product continues, and a number of other companies are enter- ing the market, too. For some of those other companies, including Samsung and Verizon, the emerging products are made possible by Kopin. The company has a long history of producing tiny displays, as well as other components, for equipment that includes military weapons and digital cameras. But in 2013 it shifted its focus toward the consumer wearables market. Nixdorff said the company has no plans to produce products directly for consumers. Instead, he said, it's more like Intel in the computer world or Qualcomm in smartphones. The idea is to invest heavily in developing new tech- nologies, then work with the consumer- facing companies that make the finished products. "We look at problems we see in the market that aren't being solved," Nixdorff said. Right now, he said, the two key prob- lems for head-mounted products are creating a seamless display — something that doesn't make the wearer look like a cyborg — and changing the way the user communicates with the device. Instead of tapping a phone or a watch, the obvi- ous way to communicate with a pair of glasses is by voice. So, Kopin has invest- ed in improving voice recognition tech- nology. Kopin also creates reference designs that its customers can use as a basis for their own finished products and, in some cases, even builds a handful of proto- types for them to work from. Matthew Robison, an analyst who fol- lows Kopin for Wunderlich Securities, said the company "may have the broad- est set of assets" among component mak- ers for headsets. The big question, he said, is whether the devices will really catch on with consumers. Already, there's a strong market for rugged, pricey head-mounted data devices in the military. Interest is also growing in such fields as public safety and logistics. But those potential mar- kets are never going to reach the volume the consumer market could potentially offer. Future fashion statements Robison said the industry is starting to address the geekiness issue, one of the big barriers to acceptance, as fashion franchises start to get involved in devel- oping the look of the products. But, he said, there's also the question of whether consumers find value in sticking their smartphones on their faces. "The kinds of things you hear about as being consumer applications are translating road signs in foreign countries, things like that," he said. "I'm not sure how far out of their way some- one will go for something like that." Kopin is betting that the market will develop. It's been in the red since 2012, while spending more on R&D. Nixdorff said you might say that, despite its long history, it has "switched into startup mode," making bold investments into technological building blocks for a prod- uct that hasn't yet developed a market. "We do know that we have to invest now before the market is mature," he said. Nixdorff admits it's impossible to know when, or if, it will mature. But, looking at how quickly we've gone from pagers to flip phones to iPhones — with watches emerging as a mass market — he said smart glasses may be coming quite soon. "I do see it as a highly likely evolution- ary step," he said. n BY LIVIA GERSHON Special to the Worcester Business Journal Company in transition Kopin Corp. of Westborough shifted its focus several years ago from immediate profits to long-term technology development. -$30 -$20 -$10 0 $10 $20 $30 $40 $50 $60 $70 Revenues Net income (loss) Internal R&D spending 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 (Numbers in millions of dollars) $31.8 M -$28.7M $20.7M Source: SEC filings

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