高科技电子烟重塑香烟未来？

    詹姆斯•蒙西斯说：每天全球有十亿烟民在吞云吐雾，使香烟成为史上最成功的消费品。一个多世纪以来，那标志性的白色小短棍一直是“吸烟”的同义词。所以，蒙西斯认为，如果能在烟草业有所建树，意义重大。

    蒙西斯说：“烟草行业规模巨大，而且实质上就是一台印钞机。因此，引入将人们的兴趣从烟草业转移的新产品不符合烟草行业的利益。蒙西斯是位于旧金山的烟草新创企业Ploom的联席创始人兼首席执行官。但电子香烟的出现和大热只是吸烟者渴望新产品的一个指标，电子香烟已经发展成为20亿美元的产业。蒙西斯认为，吸烟正在经历自工业革命以来第一个真正的创新阶段。正因为如此，Ploom公司没有做眼下便利店柜台中常见的尖头部发光的白色电子模拟香烟。是否有更令人愉悦、更健康、更高科技的方式来吸食烟草和其他物质？蒙西斯认为答案是肯定的。

    蒙西斯和Ploom另一位联席创始人亚当•鲍文不同于传统的烟草公司高管。Ploom不是脱胎于美国东南部的某片烟草田，而是诞生于斯坦福大学（Stanford University）的联合设计计划（Joint Design Program）。2007年创办Ploom公司前，蒙西斯和鲍文都是斯坦福的学生。Ploom公司的两款产品名为modelTwo和Pax，能加热、而不是燃烧烟草，用户可以吸入产生的蒸汽，以此取代烟雾。Pax是Ploom公司推出的散烟叶蒸发器。这款产品俨然已成为一种文化现象，得到名人的叫好，还被《绅士季刊》（GQ）和《快公司》（Fast Company）等杂志称为“最佳新产品”——其中很重要的一个原因是，Pax不仅能蒸发烟草，还能蒸发大麻，可谓是吸食大麻者的高科技配件。（Ploom不宣传、也不建议使用该公司产品蒸发烟草以外的其它物质。蒙西斯说：“用户使用Pax吸食烟草以外的物质将无法享受保修服务。”）

    modelTwo和Pax时髦、现代的极简主义设计使他们不仅是吸烟工具，同时也是高科技小配件，这也是Ploom与传统烟草配件制造商和电子香烟零售商的区别所在。蒙西斯说：“我们本质上是一家高科技公司，”调侃公司产品的极简主义设计使得Ploom悄悄流行开来，尤其是在年轻人中。对于在赞美iPhone、贬低万宝路牛仔（Marlboro Man）的文化中成长起来的新一代烟民，Pax这样的设备具有吸引力完全可以理解。

    虽然Ploom暂未透露具体的销售数字，但宣称已经开始盈利。而且，这家公司在2011年还获得了一笔来自日本烟草国际公司的小额投资，骆驼和云丝顿香烟就是后者旗下的品牌。随着Ploom声名鹊起，不少中国制假企业将目标瞄准了售价高达250美元Pax。和硅谷其它知名公司一样，为了将仿制品赶出市场，Ploom现在正在忙着打假。

    虽然Pax不经意间成功吸引到了大麻瘾君子的注意，但蒙西斯声称公司目前全部的精力都在烟草行业。他说：“如果消费者发现我们的产品在别的领域确实有用，那么我很荣幸，这是Ploom的福气。但我们没有任何计划进入或参与烟草以外的行业。”

    One billion smokers light up around the world each and every day, making the cigarette -- the iconic white stick synonymous with the word "smoking" for more than a century -- the most successful consumer product in history, James Monsees says. So if you can make a significant impact on the business of smoking, he reasons, the implications are massive.

    "The tobacco industry is huge and it basically prints money, so it hasn't been in its interest to introduce a new product that would shift interest away from that money-printing business," says Monsees, co-founder and CEO of the San Francisco-based smoking startup Ploom. But the advent and exploding popularity of electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes -- now a $2 billion industry -- is just one indicator of the smoking consumer's appetite for something new. Smoking is undergoing its first real phase of innovation since the industrial revolution, Monsees believes. Which is why his company is looking beyond the electronic, glow-tipped, white stick imitations now common behind convenience store counters. Is there a more enjoyable, healthier, technology-driven way of consuming tobacco and other substances? Monsees thinks so.

    Monsees and co-founder Adam Bowen are a different breed of tobacco company executive. Ploom evolved not out of a tobacco field in the southeastern United States but Stanford University's Joint Design Program, where Monsees and Bowen were students before incorporating the company in 2007. Its products -- small, pocketable vaporizers known as the "modelTwo" and "Pax" -- heat tobacco without actually combusting it, providing a vapor the user can then inhale in place of smoke. The Pax, Ploom's loose-leaf vaporizor, has become something of a cultural phenomenon, scoring celebrity shout-outs and "best new product" accolades from the likes of GQ and Fast Company magazines -- not least because it can vaporize not only tobacco but marijuana as well, making it a high-tech accessory for the pot-smoking set. (Ploom doesn't advertise or advise any use for its products beyond tobacco consumption. "With Pax it will actually void your warranty," Monsees says.)

    The sleek, modern, minimalist design of both modelTwo and Pax make them as much a high-tech gadget as a smoking implement, a quality that sets Ploom apart from both traditional tobacco accessory makers and e-cigarette retailers. "We're a tech company at our core," Monsees says, teasing at the quality that has made Ploom a quiet phenomenon, particularly among younger adults. For a new generation of smokers that came of age in a culture that glamorized the iPhone while actively seeking to deglamorize the Marlboro Man, a device like Pax holds understandable appeal.

    While the company doesn't disclose sales figures, it claims profitability, and its success earned the company a 2011 minority investment from global tobacco titan Japan Tobacco International, purveyor of Camel and Winston brand cigarettes. Ploom now fights off Chinese counterfeiters selling knockoffs of the $250 Pax, just as much larger and more recognizable Silicon Valley outfits battle to keep cheap facsimiles of their gadgets out of the marketplace.

    Though Pax in particular has found a good deal of traction with consumers more interested in consuming marijuana, the company is 100% focused on the tobacco market, Monsees says. "If some of our consumers want to use our products for other purposes because they work, that's flattering and I'll take it as a complement," he says. "But we don't design or market our products for use with anything other than tobacco."