News

Montblanc Combines Luxury With A Twist In Latest Wearable

Montblanc’s new Summit 3 Smartwatch is an exercise in classic watchmaking, but comes loaded with the latest wearable technology.

Published

4 years ago

September 6, 2022

Nour Nasir

Montblanc

As a purveyor of fine timepieces, luxury pens and luggage, Montblanc is no stranger to high-end design. The German brand created its first smartwatch back in 2017 and has just released its latest timepiece, the Summit 3, a high-end wearable aimed at a well-heeled “business lifestyle” audience.

Featuring a hand-crafted titanium case with optional calf leather straps, the watch sits at the high end of the wearable genre and manages to make an Apple Watch look positively ordinary by comparison. Here’s what Montblanc’s CEO had to say about the latest release:

“The Montblanc Summit 3 smartwatch takes luxury smart watchmaking to new heights, pairing premium materials with all the functionalities our clients need as they navigate their day more seamlessly and effectively. The personalization options are also extensive to reflect different style identities,” says Nicolas Baretzki, CEO of Montblanc.

montblanc summit 3 smartwatch

The smartwatch runs Google’s Wear OS and includes three different versions under the same Summit 3 line:

Titanium Gray with black calf and blue rubber straps.
Titanium Black with black calf and black rubber straps.
Titanium Bicolor with Montblanc Extreme 3.0 British green calf strap and black rubber straps.

Personalization options are enormous and include variations in the watch face, such as the 1858, Geosphere or Bohème — though all Summit 3 variants feature a raft of modern tech, generating daily progress, health insights and workout goals for the wearer.

Also Read: Fitbit Unveils 3 New Fitness Trackers — Without Wear OS 3

As well as looking and feeling beautiful, the Montblanc Summit 3 features a personal health suite that includes step tracking, sleep monitoring, and blood oxygen measurement. Of course, with OS Wear, it’s also possible to add apps such as Google Maps and Google Pay, whilst Montblanc’s improvements mean that the battery life of the Summit 3 easily beats the outgoing model.

So what will all of this high-tech titanium-wrapped goodness set you back? Expect to pay $1,290 for the base models before adding any extras.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

4 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.