Word: segway
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...mention a lightning rod for fierce competition. Although Kamen trashes the automobile at every opportunity and is plotting a future in which cars are barred from cities, he insists that the Big Three and their brethren will see the Segway as no threat. "Nobody in America or any developed nation will buy one of these instead of buying a car," he says. "People will buy these in addition to owning a car." But a former top auto executive thinks Kamen is kidding himself--or kidding me. "The car companies track market share by one one-hundredths of a percentage point...
...Even if the auto barons leave the Segway alone, other players are unlikely to be so forgiving. When Kamen and his lieutenants draw up lists of probable rivals, companies in other branches of the transportation industry--firms that make ATVs, motorcycles, scooters, even snowmobiles--are near the top. But the lists have been long and varied, including a raft of appliance makers, engineering companies and, especially, consumer-electronics giants, such as Sony. Kamen's team is confident it has a long technological lead, as well as patents on most of its key innovations. "Reverse engineering this thing...
...Will the Segway be a runaway hit? A device that reduces the need for walking, one of the healthiest activities known to man, may strike many people as the last thing our culture needs. (Kamen scoffs, "Because I give kids calculators doesn't make them stupider.") And three grand may strike many others as an awful lot to pay for something they've managed so far to live happily without. John Doerr, who helped bankroll Compaq in the infant days of the personal-computer industry, points out that the first PCs cost $3,000 to $5,000. The analogy...
...seen as sufficiently cool, they might. But here Segway faces a double-edged sword. If not for the media frenzy a year ago, Kamen and his invention would be receiving a good deal less attention. At the same time, that frenzy ginned up expectations so absurdly extravagant that they will be hard to live up to. There is a very real possibility that for those whose only experience of the Segway is on TV or in the press, the reaction to it may boil down to five lethal words: Is that all it is? And that possibility is only enhanced...
...looks can be misleading, as anyone who's ridden a Segway can attest. Just ask Jeff Bezos. On a rainy morning in Seattle recently, Bezos dropped in at a meeting between Kamen, his team and a pair of Amazon execs. The meeting was being held in an Amazon "pick and pack" facility--a warehouse in which employees pick stock from shelves and pack it in boxes for shipment to customers. Kamen had come to sell Amazon some Segways by demonstrating that they would, as Bezos put it, "improve our picking productivity...