HTC: how business investment could boost virtual reality

It may take some time before virtual reality sees a large consumer audience. But the enterprise market can take off faster, which is why HTC's Vive X accelerator is injecting money into enterprise VR startups.

I attended a recent event in San Francisco, where Marc Metis, global leader of the Vive X accelerator, announced investments in several companies such as Mynd VR, which offers virtual reality services to communities. seniors to keep seniors – who can not travel as easily – entertained with 360-degree travel videos.

HTC has also introduced its high-end HTC Vive Pro Eye, a flagship VR device for business, as well as the HTC Vive Focus Plus, a standalone headset that will only be available to its customers. I've talked with the Métis about how virtual reality startups can survive by focusing on working in business for the benefit of others, as well as on new platforms for business. ;business.

Here is a transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: Do you still make a lot of investment as a consumer?

Marc Metis: We are. It's not exclusive to the company. But you can see a strong dose of business in what we do. We pointed out that initially, a lot of investment. The consumer market has a lot of what I would call a personal boost, in that there are many enthusiastic consumers who continue to support virtual reality. The games will continue to come out, and we will see that it will gain mbad in the market.

Enterprise has taken an interesting step forward: "This is an interesting area, I do not know much about it, what is it?" To take a much more serious look at the applications of the RV and RA. Now, you do not have the basic conversation about what it is and why you should card. Now, people say, "I understand. I am sold. Now tell me what we can do concretely. If I buy the equipment, what can I do? Maybe you are trying to design cars with multinational teams. How do you do this in VR? You have a seasonal warehouse, which ships mainly in the fourth quarter, and you have to train workers on forklifts. How do you do this in VR? This is an area where we see real opportunities.

The other interesting aspect of the business is that businesses can earn money and accumulate intellectual property. As these companies have problems, RV / AR companies provide a solution. Sometimes it is a paid job and many smart businesses keep their intellectual property while they work on behalf of an employee. They are able to create a code base and an application library that allows them to continue building on what they do. They earn and build intellectual property at the same time.

Nevertheless, we are not less favorable to the consumer. It's more like the consumer is taking off. This obviously takes a while due to the nature of the market, but the business has become additive. It has interesting features that we have seen flourish in the last two years.

GamesBeat: With the company, are there strategies to recommend here? The good thing is that someone would still pay $ 6,000 for a solution that will save them $ 30,000 in training costs. But companies are always looking for something personalized for their business. This can put a lot of stress on a startup. Every customer wants something different.

Metis: It's common. This and also, sales cycles can be long in business. What we see a lot, and what we try to advise, is that companies build a platform as they go. As far as your point of view is concerned, you can do five random projects that are totally unique and totally unique, without reciprocal relations, without common code and without any common expertise. Maybe you did five work projects for rent and kept the lights on for a while. It's good. But we do not advise it.

We advise you to start with one goal in mind. Concentrate on this specific segment of the business and create a valuable intellectual property catalog. We advise companies to be selective within the company. You can not always be perfectly selective, because life is not so easy, but if you can focus on areas where you add value to your customer throughout your journey, as opposed to an event punctual that has nothing to do. where you are going – start with a mission. Work on projects that are additive steps towards this mission.

Try to maintain your IP address. You are still at the stage where companies are free to retain significant intellectual property in a space, as well as to build a portfolio of patents. This leads to a stage where you end up with something that looks more like a platform than random projects. You have something in common in the code base. You have an area of ​​concentration within the company, instead of being completely dispersed. You have acquired an expertise that you can use credibly with your next clients. "We have worked for A, B and C who also belong to your domain." So it is more likely that you will get D as a customer at this point. You have built something valuable while paying the bills and making some money out of the way along the way. This is the way we recommend and we find that companies are doing well.

GamesBeat: Has anybody done a good job adding up the size of the RV market in business?

Metis: We do not publish our own reports or numbers, but I can guide you to IDC. IDC divides business versus consumer very clearly. They do it for the current market and they are also planning for the future market. What I can tell you is that in the fourth quarter, IDC showed that the company was starting to take a significant share of the market. I recently reviewed the first quarter figures, which showed substantial growth compared to the fourth quarter. It's become an important part of the market, at least from a hardware point of view, and that's the way they see things. We examine everything. We also examine software and platform solutions. From this angle, it could even be more considerable.

I can tell you that this is not a rounding error of the market. This is an important element. And we have the high-end products that are well suited to this market.

GamesBeat: What is the most popular project you have there? Is it Focus or something else?

Metis: Vive Pro is basically a high-end system. It works well for some types of applications. With Focus, we are becoming more and more aggressive in the all-in-one market – it is certain that all-in-ones are attractive because of the ease of use.

GamesBeat: I guess part of the variation is in the type of controllers, whether it's your controllers, Valve Index controllers or Leap Motion fingers. There is a wide variety of requests from controllers.

Metis: There are certainly differences on a case by case basis depending on what you are trying to do specifically. Overall, we believe that we are well positioned, that we have the right types of controllers our customers are looking for, whether it's a more technical application, such as virtual reality design, or multiple applications. non-technical. We feel comfortable with what we have covered well. It's just the continued development of this market.

GamesBeat: If there is room for innovation, this may be the right choice. People can offer a lot of different controllers for businesses. I've heard that from Sixense, with its more accurate controllers.

Metis: There will always be a continuous innovation in the controllers, no doubt. Right now, with what we have and what we are going out, we are covered on this front. I think these are largely software applications that will allow me to solve, as a business customer, my very specific problem that I'm trying to solve. I may have a lot of seasonal workers that I have to master to perform certain tasks, very specific tasks. We did not show a lot of medical care today. We have made some progress on health and well-being, but we have done something else in the past with respect to health and medicine. Part of this requires more precision.

Controllers are always an area of ​​innovation. This is not a big problem for us right now. I would say that it is more the software applications that meet the needs of users in business. They are quite satisfied with the material and now they need all of this in a bundled solution that meets their needs and makes their lives easier.