Facebook Lowers Price of Enterprise-focused Quest to $800
Emergent Insight:
With so many announcements at Facebook Connect there was one that the business world may have overlooked. For companies looking for an entry-level point to VR for employees with device management and access to developers, the Oculus for Business program is a potential solution. Scott Hayden posts at the Road to VR site that there is now an update to Oculus for Business that includes the new Quest 2 headset and updated software. That’s good news. Even though they dropped the price for this new version, it would be even better for Oculus to make it more affordable and provide more VR applications for business. Potential buyers want to see effective real world applications of VR that stand up in a business context. Then they will be more inclined to make VR a budget line item.
Original Article:
Image courtesy Facebook
With the revelation of Quest 2, Facebook has quietly knocked down the entry price for its business-focused version of the headset.
Facebook only just made its Oculus for Business program openly available back in May, which basically let anyone buy a business-focused 128GB version of the original Quest for $1,000. That’s double the price of the consumer version, but that comes along with specialized software, licenses, and support for enterprises.
Now less than four months later, Facebook has brought the entry price down to $800, which now includes the 256GB version of Quest 2—again, at double the price of the same storage option available to consumers.
Like with the original $1,000 Quest for Business, this comes along with the need to sign up for a subscription to the company’s enterprise-grade software and support, which is renewable annually for $180 per year—first year included with purchase. That includes backend management software so a company can manage a fleet of Quest headsets with things such as deploying and updating apps, managing settings, and monitoring headset status.
In addition to the new hardware, Facebook has assembled a fleet of independent software vendors (ISVs) specializing in areas such as 3D modeling, product design, employee training, data visualization, and remote work applications—all of the sort of fields enterprises may look to address with an immersive headset.