Etisalat Preparing to Conduct Smart Glasses Trials
Etisalat, the multinational UAE-based telecom provider serving customers in 18 countries across Asia, the Middle East and Africa, has announced plans to conduct trials of smart glasses. Government agencies and enterprise customers of Etisalat will explore the business potential of smart glasses in logistics, construction, automotive, oil and gas, field maintenance and retail use cases.
Although no details about the providers of hardware to be tested are shared in the announcement issued by Ubimax, the primary content delivery and presentation platform partner, one would expect Ubimax preferred suppliers mentioned by the company (e.g., Vuzix and Google) to be involved.
The announcement is important for at least two reasons. It suggests that the potential to improve business processes and increase efficiency with contextually displayed information is getting attention among business leaders in the Middle East region. While businesses in all geographic regions are sensitive to risk and seek to avoid unnecessary costs, the fact that CIOs and CTOs in wealthy, oil-producing nations with large service industries are being exposed to these new technologies could pave the way for introduction of smart glasses in some very large scale projects.
The second aspect of this announcement that is intriguing is that Etisalat, a telecommunication service provider, is taking the lead. The article in Khallej Times about this announcement suggests that, if the trials produce useful results and demonstrate customer demand, hands-free displays and wearable devices bundled with AR delivery could be offered as a way to entice those customers to switch to next generation (5G) services. Other telecommunications service providers that have previously explored AR services include SK Telecom and Telecom Italia.