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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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2019: The Rise of the Spatial Room

What the hell is a Spatial Room? You’ve just made that up Leyland. True but I think every Digital Workplace/Modern Office will need at least one from next year – ideally more than one in different locations with the same (or similar) dimensions.

Spatial Computing is the umbrella term that relates to Virtual/Mixed and Augmented Reality. It’s fair to say that most of the tech industry believes Spatial Computing will have a significant impact on consumers and the enterprise even though we haven’t quite worked out who, what and when but for now just follow the money; Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and venture capitalist are pouring billions into the technology.

There are already good stories for the use of Virtual Reality in training – see the Walmart example here. The recent announcement of the US Military to enter in to large scale pilots with the Hololens is another example of large scale investment in Augmented Reality in the workplace.

During the Q1 2019 Oculus (owned by Facebook) will release Oculus Quest and in H1 2019 Microsoft will release Hololens v2.  Oculus Quest will provide a full 360 virtual reality device where users can walk around and experience a different reality without wires. The Hololens v2 will be lighter, have an improved field of view and of course will also not require wires.

Let’s think about the use of these devices in a modern office. Where could people use these devices? Almost certainly not in an open office and not in a typical meeting room. The typical meeting rooms have, tables, chairs, plenty of glass walls and a TV/Video screen. All of which are redundant using a virtual or mixed reality device. In fact most of these elements are the exact opposite of what is needed from a Spatial Room.

You need to find a room which allows someone to walk around without the fear of walking in to a chair or table. The walls need to be relatively dark/solid so you can easily attach holograms to the wall and you don’t really need a TV/video screen or audio as the devices themselves have these capabilities built in.

I can just see you going to ask your AV specialist and Facilities teams for this. Can I have a dark fairly large room within nothing in please? This will I’d imagine be met with one part horror and two parts mockery but mark my words they will become increasingly requested. The good news is that these rooms are likely to be in a basement somewhere and are the definition of multi-use. Each time someone walks into the basic room they can be transported any where they wish or dress it with whatever holograms they require.

I’d highly recommend finding someone outside of IT to pair up with to help generate the case for the room. The last thing you want to do in IT is ‘build it and they will come’, I guarantee there is somebody already in the non IT part of your business thinking about virtual and mixed reality. Find them and help each other.


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