Print.IT Reseller - issue 88

01732 759725 24 ONE-TO-ONE Following news of its recent collaboration with Lenovo, Michelle Ryder caught up with Jon Arnold, VP of Sales, EMEA at RealWear, to discuss the opportunity for channel resellers in adding assisted reality technology to their portfolio Lenovo and RealWear join forces MR: How does RealWear currently operate in the UK channel, and how will the collaboration with Lenovo work? JA: We believe that RealWear has a compelling channel story to tell. Selling solely through a two-tier channel model in EMEA, within the last quarter, the company has gone from having four distributors in EMEA to 20 distributors, and now has around 200 partners. It’s a number that we will grow carefully through the rest of 2021 and 2022. We support our partners with a comprehensive partner program that makes for an excellent combination where channel and end-user customers benefit not only from best-in-class technology, but also from leading support. Through RealWear’s channel-first strategy, we have developed close relationships with local partners; such as independent software vendors, resellers and distributors, while maintaining relationships with the end customer. From a channel perspective, Lenovo will purchase from RealWear’s distributors and will act as a RealWear global reseller. In addition, Lenovo can provide great services and solutions including financing, leasing, return and upgrade programs, device-as-a-service bundles, and subscription bundles, making it easier for enterprises to buy in large quantities. This is very exciting. We think that Lenovo’s ability to offer this consistently, globally and at scale, will be very compelling for large enterprise customers and the broader community. Perhaps, most importantly, Lenovo is endorsing the category of assisted reality, which RealWear has pioneered. We are honoured to see that yet another multi-national company is providing market validation; and in particular Michelle Ryder (MR): RealWear recently announced that it has collaborated with Lenovo. What does this mean for channel resellers? Jon Arnold (JA): We’re extremely excited about Lenovo’s partnership with RealWear. The collaboration will bring assisted reality to more places than ever, for both our existing resellers and will significantly activate the growth and robustness of our already powerful global channel. Under the agreement, Lenovo will offer RealWear’s HMT-1 family of assisted reality wearable devices through its global sales network. Additionally, Lenovo has officially certified the RealWear family of assisted reality devices for use on its ThinkReality cloud platform, expanding frontline workers’ access to optimised, hands-free 2D assisted reality applications. This is really big news for frontline workers who need to stay connected, during and beyond the current pandemic. giving a nod to our product family as the gold standard. Thanks to RealWear’s very noise-tolerant voice recognition user interface, there is a very substantial ecosystem of hands-free optimised apps (through our global ISV program) and enthusiastic customer references. We’re confident that this agreement will subsequently grow the market for RealWear and its channel partners. MR: What is assisted reality and how does it differ from augmented reality, virtual reality etc.? JA: That’s a great question, as it’s important to make and understand the distinction between each of them. Unlike augmented reality (AR), assisted reality is a reality first, digital second experience. It fits squarely on the extended reality (XR) spectrum, but is far closer to the reality of the physical world versus an immersive experience. This is attractive to frontline workers and safety experts because assisted reality enables a person to view a 2D screen within an immediate field of vision, hands-free. With assisted reality, information and data is not typically overlaid with the real-world view. In RealWear’s case, the device is essentially a head-mounted, voice-controlled wearable, which provides the user with a micro-display that ts just below their line of sight and views like a 7” tablet. There are also numerous meeting collaboration applications available on the platform such as Microsoft Teams, Cisco WebEx Expert on Demand, Zoom, TeamViewer, AMA Expert Eye and Vuforia Chalk, to name a few. Jon Arnold