Article Prepare for the Smartest Space of all: the Metaverse
By Insight Editor / 27 Apr 2022
By Insight Editor / 27 Apr 2022
Have you ever used Oculus glasses to climb Mount Everest? Or seen your own avatar (or your children's) wear the latest Gucci sunglasses in the Roblox gaming platform? That's nothing weird right now and will even be more normal in the smart world of tomorrow. We are entering a new universe: the metaverse. What should you, as a service provider, know about it right now?
“The smart world will change how people interact with the world around them”, is one of the conclusions Gartner draws in its recent Emerging Technologies and Trends Impact Radar. Aided by the further development of technologies such as the cloud, AI, AR, IoT and others, smart spaces are emerging in which people and technology interact in a new digital and/or physical environment. Only accelerated by the digital leap forward during the pandemic. This is already happening in the gaming industry, but you also see it in connected buildings, virtual workspaces, and smart logistics, for example.
Within 8 to 10 years, we will find ourselves in what will probably become the smartest space of all: the metaverse. Where will that take us?
Basically, the metaverse is the next-generation internet model, where virtual worlds, augmented reality and the internet meet and users can interact and experience things as they would in the real world. Although it will take some time for the metaverse to become established, Gartner expects that by 2026, 25% of people will spend at least one hour a day in the metaverse for work, shopping, education, social media and/or entertainment.
Source: Gartner
The metaverse does not yet “really” exist. Nevertheless, it is already relevant for service providers to proactively familiarise yourselves with it and understand the technology for future implementation. The opportunity is enormous: everything that the metaverse will facilitate will be based on technology, which is at the heart of your business. This puts you in the ultimate position to become the enablers of metaverse development, applications and other digital solutions for your customers in a new world.
As a service provider you can already anticipate your strategy and business model for this to prepare for the new technological era ahead.
Use cases will find their way into various industries; some of which we cannot even imagine today. Yet, you do not have to look very far to identify some low-hanging fruit for service providers. Think of facilitating remote, VR-augmented workplaces, meeting rooms and virtual events, and the technology behind it. Or developing new applications for interaction in the digital environment based on AR/VR technology to create an immersive user experience, for example in the education, retail or medical sectors. That doesn’t sound too far off, does it?
Although the metaverse is still in its infancy, service providers can be frontrunners in this next-generation development. Be alert to the opportunities and use your technology expertise to lead customers the way, in both existing and new sectors. With Microsoft rolling out Mesh for Microsoft Teams as we speak, the future is closer than you think.
At Insight, we help service providers in realizing their business ambitions in a multi-cloud world. As a multi-vendor software licensing, workload, and cloud platform specialist, we can guide you through all stages of your strategic cloud journey. No matter where you are in your journey, we help you to find new ways forward and accelerate your business. Contact one of our cloud specialists for a talk
Follow our blogs on cloud adoption or read our client stories to find out what others say.
PS: Read how even 100-year-old, non-cloud-native Gucci is entering the metaverse.
