While the wireless industry concerns itself with new phone features and functions, Tom Tarnowski is more worried about what those phones look and feel like.
“We also need some innovation in the area of aesthetics,” he said. “I think the end users are becoming disillusioned to the look of painted plastic.”
Imagine: A phone with a snakeskin casing. Too weird? How about a phone that looks like it was made out of leather? Or one featuring real wood paneling?
“It really excites the sense,” said Scott Ochander, Inclosia Solutions’ global business communications leader.
Inclosia is a business unit of The Dow Chemical Co. selling a new manufacturing process that bonds real materials like cotton, wood or even snake skin to plastic casings. The bonding is such that the gadgets appear to be made out of the material, but retain all the durability and lightness of plastic. Similar products are used in the interior of automobiles.
For example, an Inclosia-built desktop computer mouse features a sleek coating of black leather. The material feels, looks and smells like leather, but follows exactly the contours of the mouse. The same is true of an Inclosia-built USB stick, which features smooth wood paneling on either side.
“There’s no peeling or fraying,” Ochander said. “We use the real material.”
“It still behaves like a high-quality molding should,” said Tarnowski, Inclosia’s global business manager.
The key part of Inclosia’s new manufacturing process is that it is designed for mass-market products-like mobile phones. The company’s Exo Overmolding System bonds various materials to plastic cases, and can do so with volumes in the millions. Costs depend on what type of materials are used, but can vary from around $2 per unit for cotton to around $15 for black leather. The system also supports combinations of materials, like wood and leather.
Inclosia is betting that as the mobile-phone industry matures, features and functions will become less important. Indeed, phone designers are already tapping into the fashion aspect of the mobile-phone market. For example, Nokia Corp. has teamed with several designers to make specialized versions of its handsets, and Motorola Inc. recently scored a major victory with its sleek Razr device.
“Everyone is nodding and saying, `Yes, the housing is important,”‘ Tarnowski said.
Launched as a business unit of Dow in 2001, Inclosia scored its first sales by making rugged, rubberized casings for handheld computers. The Inclosia-encased Hewlett-Packard Co. IP54 iPAQ featured a rubber casing that was water resistant and could withstand a 4-foot drop, but still gave users access to all of the buttons. The company has since built leather-clad computer mouses for Microsoft Corp., fabric-covered laptops for Tulip Distribution International Holding and other offerings.
After its initial successes, Inclosia decided to target the broader mobile-phone market. Tarnowski said the company’s initial business model was to interject itself in the manufacturing process. The company required electronics manufacturers to first send their casings to Inclosia, which would bond the required material and then send the completed product to a distributor. That program met with little enthusiasm among mobile-phone makers.
“The OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) had a very close discussion with us,” Tarnowski said. “It made a lot more sense for us to move into a licensing program.”
Inclosia recently instituted a licensing program that allows existing manufacturing companies to use its Exo Overmolding System. Tarnowski said the move was key in scoring phone deals; handset makers tightly control their manufacturing processes to save costs. Inclosia’s first licensee, Greenpoint Group, is based in Taiwan and builds mobile phones, among other gadgets.
Tarnowski said Inclosia expects to see several products by the end of this year built with its manufacturing process. Tarnowski declined to offer details on the phones.
“It is a very exciting position to be in,” Tarnowski said. “Even the carriers are becoming interested in what the phone looks and feels like.”
