The future of AR platforms – interview with Soulaiman Itani CEO of Atheer
AREA member Atheer’s Founder Soulaiman Itani gave an interview on the future of Augmented Reality platforms by Mamoud Rasmi on Medium.
The interview starts with a little background on Itani’s background and how the company started and that the name Atheer means Ether in Arabic.
In 2013 the focus on the company shifted from a B2C to a B2B business model. Itani explained that they did a big market study around the end of 2013/beginning of 2014 and identified that the consumer market will take a long time and needs a lot of marketing and time to mature. We identified urgent needs and ROI in the enterprise and more direct access to revenue.
Our customers now use Augmented Reality in almost every aspect of their work. If you take Porsche, for example, they train their technicians for 4.5 years to get a gold qualification. Still, using our system, they were able to reduce the time to fix a car by 40%. This is because giving the right information at the right time, in the field of view of the user, can significantly improve their efficiency.
Additionally, automotive companies allow their customers to see the inspection that the mechanic does and know the possible solutions. That way the customers are more comfortable with the fix.
Challenges to be address by AR are also covered in the interview as well as the role AR is playing in an increasingly tech world.