Oculus For Business is now available for all companies

Oculus has gained in these years always more success in the consumers’ landscape, and now with the Oculus Quest, thanks to an affordable device running great content, it is making strides in the market. But in the enterprise space, it has always been behind the competition of companies like HTC or Pico. It tried to change this situation 3 years ago, when at OC4 it announced the Oculus For Business program, aimed at selling enterprise version of its devices. The program never took off and was revamped last year, to remain in a closed never-ending beta that made potential customers even more frustrated.

Today, finally, Facebook has changed all of this and is making Oculus For Business available to all interested companies. Let’s see in the details what it is, why it is relevant for the market and what are its features.

What is Oculus For Business?

Oculus For Business is Facebook’s enterprise program for Oculus products. When you buy a headset like Oculus Quest, it is meant for consumer usage, and theoretically speaking, you can’t use for commercial purposes (exhibitions, training applications, VR cinemas, etc…). Yes, I know, we all use it for commercial purposes as well and for sure Oculus won’t enforce the licensing in the short term, but if you want to play exactly by the rules, you should buy a Business Quest for every enterprise application.

The program doesn’t just give you a perfect adherence to the licensing but also gives you a set of enterprise features that are very relevant for companies, and that can make their experience in using VR much better. The Quest software is tailored at consumers, and for instance, when you open it, the first things that you see is a list of games. This is exactly what companies DO NOT want to see, and the Oculus For Business program fixes this and many other problems. As you will see from the features listed here below, it becomes fundamental for big companies wanting to implement VR in their production processes.

Why is this relevant?

Virtual Reality is becoming always more important in enterprise settings, for training, architectural visualization, prototyping, and more. Companies are understanding that virtual reality is making them spare a lot of time and money, and also guaranteeing better safety for their workers. Do you want an example? Well, during OC6, there was this little presentation that I think speaks for itself:

[….] Imperial College London took the stage to talk about the efficacy of VR training. Johnson&Johnson has created a VR training experience for surgeons, and the Imperial College had decided to make an experiment using it: it made a part of the students using it and the other one not using it.

The results are very interesting: 83% of the students that used VR for training were able to perform a first surgery in the lab with just little guidance. Do you know what is the percentage of people achieving the same results among students using traditional methods? Well, ZERO.

Talking about Competitors, Bell Helicopters has stated that the time needed to design a new helicopter has gone from years to months using Vive for design and prototyping. Whatever device you may choose, VR can boost your business (and you can contact us of New Technology Walkers to have help in this sense, if you want).

Oculus has accompanied the Oculus For Business launch blog with a report by IDC highlighting how VR adoption (shipments of commercial headsets) in the enterprise sector has grown 92.5% year-over-year in 2019 and it is stated to grow by 70% in 2020. Worldwide spending on commercial VR is expected to grow to $7.1B, up from $4.5 B in 2019. The COVID-19 crisis has made many companies realize how AR and VR can be a fundamental tool for smart working (e.g. to make people work remotely on the same 3D prototype, or to organize events all in VR, like what we are doing with VRrOOm), and this can help even more the adoption of XR.

Honestly speaking, this research by IDC has been sponsored by Facebook, so it is a bit like if I published a survey organized by me saying that I’m sexier than Hugh Jackman and Henry Cavill… it is not much reliable. But even from my experience as a consultant, I’m noticing lots of more requests about AR and VR solutions from industrial companies and events organizers, so for sure I can confirm that there is a growing adoption of XR by companies.

And this adoption requires enterprise-oriented tools and devices. Companies can’t just take a consumer-headset and use it, they have different needs from average users and they need solutions to guarantee them. Oculus For Business becomes very important exactly in this sense.

What are the features of Oculus For Business?

If you enter the Oculus For Business program, you get access to a VR solution that is very interesting for companies:

• You can have a customized launcher for your experiences. Customers don’t have to go through the Oculus Home interface, look for sideloaded apps menu to launch the training app. But they’ll find a simple launcher featuring just the app you made for them;

• You can enable Kiosk mode, making only one app start as soon as your customers put the headset on;
• There is the possibility to have applications using only hands tracking for a fast onboarding of users (this is great for exhibitions);
• A Device Setup smartphone app, that lets you install and configure multiple Oculus Quest headsets together (imagine something similar to what you do with your app to configure your single Quest, but scaled for dozens of devices);

• A Device Manager web portal that lets you configure your headsets, installing apps, removing apps, changing settings, managing controllers in bulk from only one place. It also keep users from accidentally exiting out of their experiences;
• 2-Years enterprise warranty for your headsets. While I “laugh in European” for this feature (we always have 2 years warranty), in many countries this is relevant;
• 24/7 assistance to solve all your problems. Of course if your device breaks, you’ll get a new one pretty fast.

Again, these features are not overly interesting for consumers but are fundamental for companies. The custom start menu and kiosk mode is what they need to make the employees not to get distracted by games, and the bulk configuration is fundamental for big customers, that otherwise get crazy to update their VR experiences in all their many devices (imagine having to configure hundreds of headsets one by one…).

This is why I say that even if Facebook won’t enforce the business licensing, companies will buy it anyway: it offers so many useful features for them, that there is no sense in sparing money buying consumer-oriented headsets to then lose lots of time in configuring and using them later on. And for big companies, time means money, lots of money. Oculus For Business becomes so a must-have.

What headsets are supported?

Only the Oculus Quest, with 128GB of storage.

What about Oculus Go and Rift S? Well, the first one is dying and the second one is the illegitimate child of Lenovo, so Oculus doesn’t support them for business usage. You can still buy them in bulk for your business if you contact Oculus, but you won’t get many facilities in using them (they are sold with consumer-runtime).

This is because Oculus has realized that the Quest was what fitted the best with the requests of the enterprises. Support for other headsets has so been dropped.

Is colocation for Quests supported?

I imagine you have all seen that Dead And Buried demo at the Oculus Connect 5 and want to replicate it for your business.

Unluckily, with the business licensing you can not implement any form of colocation between the headsets. I mean, Oculus is not offering any form of colocation SDK or runtime and it is also strictly prohibiting you from implementing it. The reason is guaranteeing the safety of the users of not stumbling one upon another because of a bad calibration.

This is a big bummer: it means that either Oculus releases its colocation SDK (as we all hope, and there are rumors in this sense), or if you want to open an arcade with colocation between the users, you had better picking another brand.

What’s the price?

Every Oculus Quest for business costs $999. It is the double of the consumer edition, I know, but it is because of the enterprise services.

Apart from spending $1000, you have also to pay $180/year for the subscription to the Oculus For Business service. The first year is included with the cost of the device. After the first year, you can choose if renewing this subscription or canceling it. But honestly, I wonder why a company would buy a Business Quest and then not have the Oculus services, which are probably the best part of the experience… if you cancel them, you have just a Quest sold at double of its price. So consider its price as $1000 + $180/year.

Can you borrow the headsets? Can you lend them?

Long story short, no.

The long version is that you can buy them and then lend them to others, but there should be always someone of your company supervising the users everytime they use them, to “guarantee their safety”. This kills the lending business (of course, Oculus wants to sell more headsets).

Theoretically you can’t even resell the headsets, but the final enterprise customers should buy them directly from Oculus (thanks Fabio for clarifying this).

Can you convert your consumer Quest to an enterprise one?

No. The device is exactly the same and there are no hardware differences, but I guess that they have different ROMs that should be flashed directly from Facebook, and this is pretty difficult to guarantee.

In which countries is it available?

You can check the countries available for delivery of a Business Quest at this link. At the time of writing they are:

• United States
• Canada
• Austria
• Belgium
• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Iceland
• Italy
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Poland
• Republic of Ireland
• Spain
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• UK
• Australia
• Japan
• New Zealand
• Taiwan

If you a content provider, can your partner with Oculus to provide your business applications to companies?

Yes, but only if you are relevant to Oculus. Facebook has created the ISV (Independent Software Vendor) program, that helps companies developing solutions for enterprise in expanding their business. Facebook offers them:

• Technical support
• Access to the devices
• Go-to-market support
• Resources designed to help accelerate customer adoption of your VR solutions.
• Tools to scale your VR practice.

Basically, Oculus supports you in selling your enterprise solutions to potential customers. This is a win-win for everyone, especially because you develop your experiences for Oculus products, so that they can sell more devices.

This seemed a great program to me, and as a VR consultant that has already developed various enterprise AR/VR solutions at New Technology Walkers, I was going to apply. But then I discovered that it is the classical posh program offered by Facebook. To apply you should be a provider that has:

• Designed, developed, and deployed commercial VR solutions.
• Implemented at least one Global Fortune 2000 customer pilot or deployment.
• Focused on VR training, simulations, data visualization, or remote collaboration.

You must submit your application and wait for approval by Oculus, which evaluates your quality as a company. Does this remind you of something else? (If you have answered: the “Oculus Store curation process”, then you have read my mind).

Basically, either you are a company with a product that you can sell to big corporates, or Oculus doesn’t care partnering with you. This approach reminds me a lot the one that Microsoft is having with HoloLens 2, and is understandable since they are selling devices worth $1000 each, that can’t interest small businesses. Anyway, this is frustrating for small studios like ours that have never had the luck of working directly with enormous corporates, and that are always cut off these programs that could help them boost their business.

How does it compare with the services offered by Pico and HTC?

Until now, Pico and HTC have always ruled in the enterprise world, offering clear business licensing, and business-oriented services. Oculus has made a bit of a mess, but now it is finally back in track. But how does it compare with its competitors?

I think it is too early to judge: the only companies that have actually used the Oculus For Business platform are Oculus partners like DHL and Johnson&Johnson and they for sure can only say good things about it. We have to wait for the program to be widespread in the wild to see if companies will think it is worth it or not. If you are a company, and you are using Oculus For Business, please contact me and let me know your feedback!

For sure Oculus has less experience in the field than Pico and HTC, and it also offers a headset that is more expensive: Pico Neo 2 costs $7-800, and the Vive Focus Plus costs $800. The Oculus Quest is also pretty uncomfortable in the long run, and I wouldn’t make people wear it for more than 1 hour… this can be a problem in training settings. The Pico Neo 2 is more balanced and also more powerful (it runs a Snapdragon 845).

But it is also true that the Quest is a solid device that is being appreciated worldwide and that is being updated at crazy rhythms. Oculus has also behind a very solid company like Facebook, that guarantees that the services will run for many years, and that can create on the long run powerful cloud services. This gives them also the advantage of basing all the software on Workplace (by Facebook) that ensures the adherence of the solution to enterprise privacy and security standards.

So, there are pros and cons… let’s see what the first real adopters will say of this solution before judging it.

Further References

If you want to learn more about Oculus For Business, you can read more information at these links:

• Announcement article by Oculus: https://www.oculus.com/blog/open-for-business-oculus-enterprise-platform-available-now-/
• Oculus For Business website: https://business.oculus.com/
• FAQs on ISV program: https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/ofb/oculus-isv-program/#frequently-asked-questions
• IDC Market research on enterprise VR: https://images.idgesg.net/assets/2020/05/idc_technology20evolution20and20use20case20expansion20drive20virtual20realtiy20growth20in20the20enterprise.pdf
• Form to contact oculus for entering the Oculus For Business program: https://oculusforbusiness.fb.com/get-started.html

---

I’m very interested in this Oculus For Business program and I’m sure many of our customers at NTW will feel the same. I can’t wait to discover more and see how it will stick with companies.

Let’s make VR great again, also for companies!

(PS Thanks Eloi Gerard for the tip!)

(Header image by Oculus)