Enterprise Adopts Consumer AR/VR

Stepping aside from the declining sales figures in consumer use of virtual reality. Investors are now starting to see an increase demand in enterprise usage of AR & VR and analysts expect this trend to continue.

Enterprise use case of AR & VR is increasing

​IDC anticipates the overall market will return to growth over the remainder of 2018 as more vendors target the commercial AR and VR markets and low-cost standalone VR headsets such as the Oculus Go gain more traction.

​IDC believe that some of the future growth in demand for VR and AR headsets will be largely driven by businesses and enterprise-level applications such as employee training and remote collaboration. IDC said: “We believes the commercial market to be equally important and predict it will grow from 24 per cent of VR headset shipments in 2018 to 44.6 per cent by 2022.”

While enterprise markets have made use of professional-grade virtual reality (VR) technology for some time, the recent development of consumer-grade VR head-mounted displays (HMDs) from companies like Facebook/Oculus, HTC, and Samsung has raised the profile of VR immeasurably and, more importantly, sparked the potential for enterprise VR use cases leveraging consumer-grade VR solutions.

​In addition to the availability of low-cost consumer grade VR solutions, the adoption of VR among enterprises is motivated by the opportunity for increased productivity, improved results, and efficiency through the greater level of immersion that VR applications offer compared to more conventional means.

​IDC predicts that the Oculus platorm is likely to face pressure from both HTC's VIve platform and Microsoft's Windows Mixed Reality platform. The latter should see strong opportunities in the commercial market as brands such as HP, Dell, and Lenovo bring their years of experience catering to enterprise buyers. ​​​Another company looking to get into the commercial space, is augmented reality start-up Magic Leap, which just recently launched its $2,3000 Magic Leap One device.

Magic Leap One

"Industry watchers are eager to see new headsets ship from the likes of Magic Leap, Microsoft, and others. But for those devices to fulfil their promise we need developers creating the next-generation of applications that will drive new experiences on both the consumer and commercial sides of the market" said Tom Mainelli, program vice president, Devices and Augmented and Virtual Reality at IDC.