Swatch, a watchmaker, has announced this week it is developing a "Swiss-made ecosystem" for smartwatches and IoT products. The platform is so far unnamed, but it has been nicknamed "Swiss OS". It is a rival to ecosystems from Android, Amazon, Apple and others.

The five main claimed benefits for "Swiss OS" include:

1. Swiss-made -- a positive halo-effect for dependability and quality;
2. Security and data-protection -- a private "Swiss vault" for your data, less likely to monitored by Western security agencies;
3. Ultra-low power -- this has not been quantified, but we expect it to meet broad industry standards;
4. Durability -- the system promises fewer software updates than those seen by Android or others, which enhances usability;
5. Wireless techs -- compatible with ultra-low-power unwired techs like Bluetooth LE.

The benefits of "Swiss OS" look compelling. Most consumers and firms, of course, want more-secure data and longer battery life.

The big problem "Swiss OS" will run into, however, is scale. With less than 1% share of the global smartwatch market today, Swatch has neither the scale nor power to make a significant dent in an industry already dominated by Apple watchOS, Tizen and Android Wear. Swatch, its partners and "Swiss OS" clearly face an uphill battle.