Meta’s Nick Clegg Calls Out Educators and Enterprise

Yesterday, Meta President of  Global Affairs Nick Clegg posted a video on his social media calling to enterprise and education customers, promoting them to leverage XR today by highlighting some current use cases.

The news comes as Meta reinforces its stance on immersive solutions for work and the industrial Metaverse, which Meta now includes in advertising material following the lacklustre debut of the Quest Pro.

Seemingly, the firm’s recent Connect 2023 event focused on consumer use cases of MR headsets and AR smart glasses. However, it is clear that Meta is working with enterprise end-users to optimize its MR product for broader use cases.

During the promotional video, Clegg noted that “Metaverse technologies like augmented and virtual reality have the potential to revolutionize the way we work and learn.” Moreover, Clegg explained how European companies use AR and VR today to “improve industries and people’s lives.”

Clegg added:

European business leaders such as Lufthansa, Iveco,  Alstorm, and Decathlon are already using immersive technologies to develop products, to train employees, and engage customers. – Others, like virtual medicine, are using Metaverse technologies in groundbreaking ways to support medical professionals, educators, and students in fully immersive digital environments. The impact of the Metaverse is real, and it’s happening today, right now. – As Metaverse technologies continue to progress, more and more opportunities will open up.

Moreover, Clegg quickly noted the importance of the foundation upon which the potential industrial Metaverse will stand – that foundation is built on the emerging talent pool, increasing knowledge bases, and exposure.

During the promotional video, Clegg explained, “the more developers that build these [XR] programmes and the more schools and companies use them, the more impact they’ll have.” Clegg also said that “as the technologies mature and develop, so will their ability to share ideas across cultures, to break down social, economic barriers, and to create more opportunities for companies in Europe and beyond.”

Moreover, speaking on Meta’s consumer focus, aiming to place a large number of devices in homes over the holiday period is another way to establish a foundational building block to introduce workplace XR. Because if headsets are more ubiquitous in daily life, with increased optics and familiarity, XR technologies won’t seem as overwhelming or hard to understand when introduced to a decision maker – similar to how smartphones took over the consumer market before gaining prominence as a workplace tool.

Speaking on the future of immersive services in the workplace, Meta’s Global Executive of Engagement, Reality Labs, Dan Nieves, took the stage at IGS 2023 to discuss the then-upcoming Quest for Business solution.

During his keynote, Nieves explained that Metaverse technologies and AI are “reshaping” how enterprise clients experience aspects of their physical and digital worlds, “more and more, people in teams are being distributed and more spread out. So, it’s really the combination of both the physical and digital worlds that are defining our reality,” Nieves remarked.

Dan Nieves says businesses use VR and MR technologies to create new opportunities that benefit society. He added that a wide range of enterprise XR use cases are available, especially in education, healthcare, and workplace collaboration. Already, many organizations are experiencing real impacts from these technologies, Nieves expressed at the time.

Meta Quest for Bussiness

Despite Meta’s focus on developing a consumer device with the Quest 3, the firm is readying up a deep business portfolio for an industrial Metavers future.

Most recently, the firm debuted Meta Quest for Bussiness, a first-party device and application management hub that entered general availability following a successful testing period.

Meta Quest for Business is a subscription service that supports enterprise end-users who utilize Meta Quest 2, 3, and Pro devices. The service also assists clients in distributing devices and applications across a team. Enterprise end-users in the United States, the United Kingdom, and others can immediately sign up for Meta Quest for Business. In addition, Meta is offering Shared Mode and Support Plus as add-ons to the service.

Moreover, customers who purchase the Shared Mode feature don’t need a Meta account for their workers to participate. It has been a long-standing concern with Meta entering the digital business solutions landscape that forced sign-ins will reduce product adoption.

After connecting a device to the Meta Quest for Business hub, a team leader can easily manage and maintain a VR/MR headset. In addition, they can assign a Meta Quest device with an individual Business hub add-on. The admin portal of Meta Quest for Business also provides a team management hub that allows leaders to give accounts and devices- with additional automation tools ready to streamline the process.

Meta Quest for Business also includes a built-in MDM solution that gives team leaders direct control of their headset fleet. Using the admin portal, a team leader can leverage the MDM features to set bulk provisions, assign profiles, review device status, configure WiFi support, reset PIN access, and remotely wipe devices.

The built-in MDM solutions allow access to a small line-up of third-party XR MDM service providers, including Invanti, VMware Workspace ONE, and Microsoft Intune.

The Meta Quest for Business subscription service is coming as many enterprise-grade immersive software vendors are debuting applications on the Meta Quest 3.

This week, Arvizio introduced its AR Instructor assistive reality service to the Meta Quest 3. The “transformative” immersive training service gives Quest 3 users access to immersive guidance visualizations, such as step-by-step instructions and digital twins, to assist frontline workers with daily operations.

Integrating the AR Instructor/Quest 3 brings a powerful tool to the Meta Quest 3, enabling end-users to access AI-powered immersive training and operational experience visualizations. Arvizio claims this integration supports various use cases, including upskilling, onboarding, maintenance, repair, and field service.