It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Phillip Morris and other large tobacco manufacturers have to know that there is a threat with e-cigs stealing their life long customers. If they are smart, they will buy the technology to create thier own brand. But you never know with big business. They may just buy it to get rid of it and keep pushing thier analogs.
Sounds very familiar...like... "Who Killed the Electric Car?" GM never intended people to actually like the EV-1. When it started to look like they would have to retool all their factories, or maybe when Big Oil put the squeeze on them, they rounded all of them up and shredded them.
But then again, R&D at PM
were already developing an inhaler. It's going to come down to what will produce the most profit in the least amount of time. Typically, American corporations are short sighted. They live and die in 3 month increments. Contrast this with Toyota, they have a business plan that spans
over 300 years!! America invents the transistor for use in hearing aids. Japan takes that same transistor and makes portable hand held radios creating a consumer electronics explosion that continues today.
If they are smart, they'll realize that they are not in the cigarette business. They are in the business of distributing nicotine delivery systems, and it's time for them to upgrade their product line and join the rest of us in the 21st century.
