The TD SYNNEX Endpoint Solutions leadership team were given the chance to try out Meta Quest 3 virtual reality headsets to conduct part of their regular meeting recently – with impressive results
Virtual and mixed reality offer tremendous potential to enhance creativity and learning experiences and enable richer and more interactive remote meetings and collaboration. While many of us will have tried on a VR headset, few have used it out in a real-world workplace scenario and market research suggests that engagement with the technology is still relatively low.
This means there is still a great deal of opportunity with mixed and virtual reality – and meetings and collaboration are one of the major areas of potential. One key enabler here is the Mesh feature of Microsoft Teams, which makes the VR experience immersive within the meeting environment. It’s been shown that using the Mesh feature in Teams can really help to drive up engagement by as much as 58%.
Leading by example
The TD SYNNEX Endpoint Solutions leadership team recently decided to make use of one of the most successful technologies available right now – the Meta Quest 3 VR headset – to experience using virtual reality in meetings for themselves.
The team used the headsets for a 30 minute period of a scheduled meeting and, after taking a few minutes to adjust to the new environment, were able to walk around the specially-created virtual meeting area and interact with their respective avatars. The team also used a presentation scenario, in which one of the team ran through a series of slides within the virtual environment.
A real eye-opener
Sophia Haywood-Atkinson, services director, said: ‘It was a real eye-opener and I really enjoyed it. Once you got used to the environment, it was quite easy to move around, talk to other people and use different tools.’
James Reed, managing director – endpoint solutions added: ‘It’s a fantastic concept and great to get all of the team working together in an immersive environment. It was really impressive that one of our team was able to join remotely – in in an entirely seamless way. I liked the presentation setting at the end and could imagine that full of people.’
The remote participant was able to interact with colleagues who were in the Basingstoke office, demonstrating how any team can use VR and MR to conduct interactive meetings with people located in different places. All the participants were able to join the virtual section of the meeting seamlessly from Teams and switch between the Meta headsets and a conventional interface at any time during in the meeting.
Calling all partners
Dan Melly, business development manager – mixed and virtual reality, said: ‘I think it was a really positive and enlightening experience for the Endpoint Solutions board – as it is for everyone who uses VR within Teams. It demonstrated just how effective and impactful collaboration can be when you used Meta headsets. We hope this will encourage and inspire more partners to come forward and work with us to address the huge potential within the collaboration space for Meta and for VR and MR solutions more generally.’
TD SYNNEX is ready to help partners get up and running with the Meta Work Partner Programme. This provides training and business development support, and assistance with installations where required.
Expanded opportunity
The TD SYNNEX leadership team meeting was set up and managed by Expand Reality, a TD SYNNEX partner and specialist in the use of extended reality (XR) for collaboration. Working with our own in-house experts, Expand Reality made it easy for the team, setting up the Meta Quest 3 headsets and the virtual meeting space in which the team were able to interact.
Virtual and mixed reality solution are now being used in multiple scenarios in businesses – for collaboration and meetings, for scenario-based learning and skills development, and for creativity and design. With the opportunities expanding, TD SYNNEX is looking to bring more partners on board to address the potential.
Partners can work with TD SYNNEX and Expand Reality to run customer demonstrations and explore the potential for virtual and mixed reality solutions with their customers. Demonstration and seed units may be available to partners with specific opportunities.
Find out about our Meta Work Partner Programme here
Or contact the mixed and augmented reality team at TD SYNNEX, by emailing dan.melly@tdsynnex.com.
You can also contact Expand Reality to learn about the exciting introductory offers and bundles that they have available.
