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Virtual Reality at Work

Cisco recently announced they are closing down their Spark VR experiment. Whilst it was always an experiment it’s a shame to see a major vendor in the enterprise communications market exit for now, especially as AR/VR are predicted to be multi billion dollar industries over the next 5 years. It may well be enterprise VR delivers more than consumer VR over the next few years.

We already see VR entering the workplace. STRIVR are one of the first adopters moving their sporting examples into large organisations such as Walmart.

The barrier to entry in VR remains high. The Walmart example uses Oculus Rifts which require a laptop, many wires and likely a dedicated room. This is due to change in 2019 with the launch of Oculus Quest. The Quest provides a standalone VR headset which allows six degrees of freedom (essentially the ability to move around) whilst maintaining the performance of the Rift.

With Cisco moving out and Microsoft focusing primarily on their Mixed Reality Hololens it does leave Facebook in a strong position to attack this space.

  • They have devices in Oculus Quest, Rift and Go
  • They have Workplace by Facebook which is their business version of social networking
  • Finally they also have years of working with Social VR – it may well be true social VR hasn’t grown as expected but the team have almost certainly learnt a great deal of lessons on what does and doesn’t work

If you combine all three elements then the Workplace team don’t just have a direct compete against the likes of Microsoft’s Yammer they have a higher value story.

Lets expand the Walmart example further:

  • They can shift from the Rift device to a Quest which will allow Walmart to expand their training from dedicated academies to all Walmart stores
  • The associates who train with the Quest can discuss their experiences with all other associates over Workplace
  • Finally with Social VR they can meet and discuss in a virtual environment. This may not yet be available but there are companies such as High Fidelity already exploring this type of service

Consumer VR may will be ‘sleeping’ as the market works out the combination of device and services which make a compelling offer but VR in the enterprise could have a break out year in 2019.

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Acano – Three Years On

I wrote this article just after the acquisition of Acano by Cisco, as always in the Tech industry a great deal seems to have changed since then:

  • Cisco have lost their Collaboration leader (Rowan Trollope) and have rebranded Spark back to Webex
  • Microsoft arguably made a more dramatic shift and replaced Skype for Business with Teams

In the mean time Cisco and Microsoft customers have become thoroughly confused about what to do next – especially those large enterprise who have Microsoft for Productivity and Voice and Cisco for Video. Three years ago Acano was a perfect solution to marry the two technologies together. This was especially important for large organisations who invested millions of dollars in Cisco video rooms and Lync/Skype for Business.

Today those large organisations face a challenge as they look at the current upgrade cycle of Cisco TelePresence and Skype for Business. Do they:

  1. Invest in Skype for Business 2019 and Cisco Meeting Server (formerly Acano) which will provide a maintainable service but ultimately shifts an upgrade decision in to two or three years time.
  2. Begin a programme to replace Skype for Business and Cisco Telepresence/Meeting Server given that both sets of products are either implicitly or explicitly not going to be the primary product in the future.
  3. There isn’t a single route to take as it depends on the circumstance of the the organisations who have deployed. However as a working principle unless the upgrade is part of a bridge to innovation the Skype and Meeting Server upgrade option while safe is driving an organisation down a dead end. There is going to be so much innovation taking place in the market over the next three years not just with suppliers such as Google, Microsoft, Workplace, Zoom (alphabetical order/to name but a few) but with devices and meeting rooms that some organisations who choose to invest will be one or most likely two generations ahead of those who choose to upgrade and not invest in the latest developments.


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