HTC VIVE Launches Full Suite Of Premium VR Offerings For Businesses Of All Sizes

SEATTLE, Nov. 8, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- HTC VIVE™ today announced a premium virtual reality experience for the enterprise market, including a new platform, new hardware, and new software available specifically for commercial use. This launch reinforces VIVE's increased commitment to bringing best-in-class design and software expertise—paired with the world's best VR hardware—to businesses of all sizes. With this complete solution powered by Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 835 Mobile VR Platform the enterprise market can now create, collaborate, and engage in new and effective ways with employees and customers alike. Companies across the globe such as SimForHealth, and the Volkswagen Group are already implementing VIVE for training, simulation, and product design purposes.

Today, VIVE is launching a portfolio of premium products in Western markets, including VIVE FOCUS™, a new standalone HMD for enterprise; VIVE WAVE™ VR SDK, the quintessential open VR platform for developers to create content for standalone devices; and VIVE Sync, a new enterprise collaboration tool.

VIVE Focus: The Most Powerful Standalone VR Experience

Through VIVE Focus, VIVE offers the most complete and powerful standalone VR experience available for businesses on the market today. With this launch, VIVE Focus will be available in 37 markets worldwide. VIVE Focus is powered by the VIVE Wave platform and content from VIVEPORT™, this innovative standalone headset is ideal for businesses that want a truly mobile VR experience. It offers a stunning combination of power and portability and the highest resolution graphics available on a standalone headset, with absolutely no PC needed.

With VIVE Focus, no external base stations or sensors are needed—enterprises can utilize instant standalone VR with dual 3K AMOLED screens, interactive tracking, and Snapdragon 835 Mobile VR Platform. With high-resolution 2880 x 1600 graphics on par with tethered, professional-grade VR system like the VIVE Pro, VIVE Focus features innovative world-scale tracking and a 110° field of view. Users will enjoy a freeing, intuitive experience with no wires to pull them back to reality, built-in speakers, and up to three hours of active use on a single charge.

The VIVE Focus can be paired with the VIVE Enterprise Advantage professional services program, which offers two tiers (Advantage or Advantage+) of commercial licensing, dedicated support, and service utilities for VIVE enterprise hardware. Each program offers purchase protection with tailored hardware warranties, limited down time, dedicated support and advanced device management utilities such as a Kiosk mode and a batch configuration feature.

VIVE WAVE: The Most Innovative Platform for Superior Standalone VR

The new VIVE Wave VR SDK offers an open interface, enabling interoperability between numerous mobile VR headsets and accessories, with VIVEPORT as the universal distribution and storefront for all VIVE Wave devices. This allows VR content developers to more efficiently develop, port and publish content while offering a much broader reach of potential customers across multiple VR headsets. Meanwhile, hardware partners are able to focus on true device innovation versus fundamental VR optimization, with access to much needed quality VR content through the VIVEPORT platform.

VIVE Wave is a clear step forward in bringing together the highly fragmented mobile VR market and enables developers to create content for a common platform and storefront across multiple hardware vendors. Today, there are over 150 applications available, with more in development, and the platform is currently deployed on five stand-alone devices worldwide. Since launch, 15 total hardware partners have announced their support for VIVE Wave and are planning the integration of Wave into their products.

Shadow Creator joins the VIVE Wave Platform

Today, the VIVE Wave platform is also welcoming Shadow Creator as the newest hardware partner to adopt the platform. Shadow Creator builds Shadow VR, an all-in-one VR HMD that supports 6DoF controllers, has innovative functionality and capabilities, and exceptional performance. The device will launch on November 11 worldwide.

"Partnering with VIVE and Wave benefits us two-fold," said Jinxin Hu, COO of Shadow Creator. "It allows us to achieve more profit models through the open platform and also helps us connect with more global users, thus enhancing our company's international reputation and brand influence."

Shadow VR all-in-one HMD is equipped with a Snapdragon 835 Mobile VR Platform and Fresnel ultra-thin optical lens, using a self-developed holographic 3D UI Blue Cat and 6 degrees of freedom (DoF) capabilities. A 2K (2560x1440) HD display brings users a clearer and more realistic picture experience and the stereo dual-speaker sound effect makes the experience more immersive. Shadow VR is equipped with self-developed 6DoF controllers, which uses a nine-axis high-precision gyroscope, ray tracing, and a button layout compatible with most VR controllers today.

VIVE Helps Enterprise Partners Work More Efficiently

Today, VIVE also introduced VIVE Sync, a new virtual reality collaboration and meeting application specifically for enterprise that is part of the VIVE Enterprise suite of services. VIVE Sync is an intuitive collaboration tool where internal teams can meet in a virtual shared space, improving communication and productivity amongst organizations.

Additionally, at a media event in San Francisco today, VIVE showcased VIVE Sync, as well as a number of partners utilizing VIVE Focus to demonstrate enterprise efforts:

• Immersive Factory is a French start-up specializing in the design of virtual reality training who provide companies with a different way of addressing safety, health, and environmental issues with their teams.
• Innoactive is a Munich-based start-up that develops virtual, augmented, and mixed reality enterprise software. The company serves clients in the automotive, retail, aerospace, pharmaceutical, and financial sectors. Innoactive's software solutions streamline the content production and roll-out of VR collaborative planning, simulation, and training applications.
• Modal is inspired by co-founder Nolan Bushnell's success with Atari and Chuck E. Cheese's, bringing social, fun, and active free-roam location-based VR entertainment to a mass audience.
• Primitive is an Immersive Development Environment, a three-dimensional programming world where software developers can explore, interact, and debug their code in unlimited virtual space.
• Qualcomm Technologies: A demonstrative experience for medical practitioners as a way to reinvent health care education and training, the Think F.A.S.T. demo immerses users in a medical VR environment where they can receive hands-on instructional content that simulates a real-world comprehensive stroke examination designed to assist in diagnosing strokes faster and in turn, reducing the long-term impact of the disease.
• SimForHealth offers an immersive, interactive and collaborative approach to the training of health professionals, inline with the principle.

For more on VIVE for enterprise, please visit: //enterprise.vive.com.

Partner Supporting Quotes:

"The two major barriers for companies to deploy VR training are cost of hardware and content creation. We want to contribute with offering free on-premise licenses of our software suite—both the Unity3D content creation toolkit and the Innoactive Hub content deployment system. We will natively support VIVE Wave SDK, VIVE Focus, and the new 6DoF controllers, in order to allow our customers to deploy VR training with lower cost and a much better ease-of-use and improved flexibility. This will drive VR training adoption in enterprises to the next level." - Daniel Seidl, CEO and Founder, Innoactive.

"At the Volkswagen Group, we're thrilled to be collaborating with VIVE and using virtual reality to enhance our internal processes. To date, we've seen significant increases in efficiency and the effectiveness of our programs. We're excited to embark on this next phase to use VIVE Focus and the VIVE Wave platform." - Dennis Abmeier, Volkswagen Group IT/Digital Realities.

"The COLAS RAILS exercise highly benefits from VIVE Focus because the standalone headset combines the strength of VR immersion with an increased opportunity to quickly and easily deploy training in various sites. Immersive Factory also found that the current controller provides multiple interactions, which allows users to move, work, and behave as they would in real life. Immersive Factory is willing to make the majority of its 15 exercises, which will be available on its platform mid-December, playable on VIVE Focus. Immersive Factory will also use VIVE Focus headsets during Safety Days in VR, organized for companies such as Suez, Veolia, L'oreal, Vinci, Moët Hennessy, Thales, Schneider Electrics, Airbus, Colas, Bic ... more than 6,000 employees have been attending these VR Safety Days in 2018." – Olivier Pierre, COO and Founder, Immersive Factory

"The VIVE Focus has become a key component in Modal's location-based VR entertainment system. The form factor, enterprise-grade capabilities, cost, and overall accessibility help drive our business model and market approach."" – Jason Crawford, Co-Founder and Chief Immersionist, Modal

"Since the earliest days of the VR movement, VIVE has been the very best, and most supportive partner to small VR companies. Developing on the newest all-in-one platforms powered by Wave has been exciting, because it has opened up a new world of possibilities in enterprise and consumer VR applications." - John Voorhees, Founder and Chief Executive, Primitive

"Qualcomm Technologies is thrilled to support this premium all-in-one standalone enterprise VR solution built on the Snapdragon 835 Mobile VR Platform. This further expands our technology relationship with VIVE Focus and VIVE Wave to enhance productivity in the enterprise." – Hugo Swart, Head of XR, Qualcomm Technoloiges, Inc.

"Partnering since 2016 with HTC VIVE, the Focus has permitted SimforHealth to set new standards in the use of VR for medical and nursing education. Developing simulations such as our digital multi-player simulator with the HTC VIVE pro headset, and a sleep apnea simulator on the HTC VIVE Focus have become a real asset for the training of healthcare professionals." -Xavier Abadie, Chief international Development Officer, SimForHealth

Wave Hardware Partner Supporting Quotes:

Dr Xiaohui Wang, General Manager of Skyworth VR, worked with VIVE Wave to create an influential content platform in the field of VR. Through Skyworth's robust user base and service network in China, content creation with VIVE will connect to a wider audience. He said, "Skyworth has established in-depth cooperation with VIVE on the basis of equal, mutual benefit and the exchange of needed products. We're working together to realize a mutually beneficial and win-win strategy."

"HTC VIVE has built a partnership with Pico in the China market. Pico pre-installed VIVEPORT as content store in Pico VR headsets, which is already on sale in China," said Karen Zu, Marketing VP of Pico Technology.

Upholding the belief that mobile VR will embrace plenty of opportunities in the future, iQIYI is committed to the R&D and sales of mobile VR hardware products and the development and production of related VR video contents. "In order to address the fragmentation of hardware and software platforms and the challenges in contents and experience, iQIYI recognizes and takes an active part in the VIVE Wave mobile VR ecosystem built by HTC," said Sun Feng of iQIYI. iQIYI is leveraging their brand, products, and channels to conduct comprehensive and in-depth cooperation with HTC VIVE with regard to VIVEPORT app store, working together to provide quality products, contents, and services to consumers.

About HTC VIVE
VIVE is a first-of-its-kind virtual reality platform, built and optimized for room-scale VR and true-to-life interactions. Delivering on the promise of VR with game-changing technology and best-in-class content, VIVE has created the strongest ecosystem for VR hardware and software, bringing VR to consumers, developers and enterprises alike. The VIVE ecosystem is built around the best VR hardware in market, supported by VIVE X, a $100 million accelerator for VR and related technology start-ups, VIVEPORT, a global platform and app store with the world's first VR subscription model that operates in more than 45 countries, and VIVE Studios, its VR content development and publishing initiative. For more information on VIVE, please visit www.vive.com.

For more information on Vive, please visit www.vive.com.

About Qualcomm
Qualcomm and Snapdragon are trademarks of Qualcomm Incorporated, registered in the United States and other countries.

Qualcomm Snapdragon is a product of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

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HTC, the HTC logo are the trademarks of HTC Corporation. All other names of companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.