zlacker

Because I have a hard time imagining myself in the conference room where they're like, wow, our boots are great, but who here knows how to lace them up? Nobody? Ok, then let's pay these randos some licensing fees. Alice from legal, can you start contractual negotiations for how much money, or percentage of our boot sales, we're going to pay randos. Bob from manufacturing, can you start investigating how we're going to retool our boot line to fold in this new technology? I'm sure there are a bazillion other logistical moving parts that I can't even imagine

For laces.

I'll also point out, without one shred of irony, that the reason I bought those 32 brand boots is for their innovative boot lacing system (Boa). Maybe they licensed that, too

>>mdanie+(OP)
Fair enough.

I personally imagined much more of a "well we're a shoe company...anyone got any ideas for new models? Well then, how about one with fancy laces?" situation, and that seemed plausible enough.