LONDON, UK: VR Education Holdings plc announced that HTC Corporation (HTC) has today launched ENGAGE in China, reselling the platform as VIVE Sessions. 

This new service will focus on large-scale conferences, exhibitions and educational events in China and HTC will provide all the necessary enterprise sales, support and marketing in the region.

The VIVE XR Suite, which includes VIVE Sessions and is being launched globally, is an enterprise-focused integrated VR software bundle of applications which enable users to stay productive and collaborate, even when physically apart, via PCs, phones, tablets and most major VR devices.

The virtual launch event held earlier today was conducted in the VIVE Sessions application where thousands of attendees joined in avatar form from around the world. HTC announced that Accenture will be a distribution partner for the XR Suite to their clients globally.

The VIVE XR Suite is comprised of applications designed to meet the challenges of working, learning and living remotely. This integrated bundle provides a collection of solutions for real-time collaboration, virtual events, and life-like communication using the latest spatial computing technology which enables users to feel like they are having a shared experience with others in a virtual space.

On 20 May 2020, the Group announced a significant investment from HTC who now hold a circa 20% stake in VR Education.  On the same date HTC also signed a distribution and license agreement with the Group, for an initial four year period, appointing HTC as the Group’s exclusive distributor throughout the Greater China Region (being, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and the People’s Republic of China) and as its non-exclusive distributor for the Global Region (being the world, excluding the Greater China Region). 

Under the terms of the agreement, HTC agreed to pay a percentage of net revenue as collected by HTC in the Greater China Region.

David Whelan, CEO of VR Education, said: “We have been working closely with HTC’s China team over the past six months extensively testing the Chinese deployment of VIVE Sessions. With so many challenges in acceptance for European developed software to be deployed into the Chinese market, we are delighted to be working with HTC as our partner which has made this difficult task possible.

“China is one of the world’s largest markets and a leader in XR adoption. Having ENGAGE services available for Chinese users under the VIVE brand and a robust HTC sales and marketing team with a fantastic track record for enterprise sales will help create additional revenues for the Group going forward. We have seen high demand for ENGAGE services globally because of Covid-19 concerns and we hope to see significant demand in China for VIVE Sessions.  We believe that ENGAGE will have broader appeal to Asian users who are typically quicker to adopt new technologies.

“The Chinese release of ENGAGE is a major milestone for the Group and something that is rare for a medium sized business like us. Our aim is to become the dominant next generation global communications platform, and this is one step towards us achieving that goal.  This additional revenue stream from working with HTC will take a little time to mature, however, we believe it sets solid foundations for both companies as we grow the XR space together.”

Alvin W. Graylin, Global SW BU Head/China President HTC, said: “VR Education has been a great partner in working together with us as a core part of the VIVE XR Suite.  We have done multiple major events and projects together in the ENGAGE/VIVE Sessions platform in prior months and look forward to transitioning to selling it into the Enterprise market as a key piece of our solution to enable more productive remote work and remote learning globally in the new normal we all live in now.   It is a platform with unique capabilities that is well suited to the needs of the market going forward.”

Cher Wang, Chairwoman and CEO of HTC, said: “Applying technology to solve real-world problems has always been a core tenet of our philosophy at HTC. The VIVE XR Suite offers the ultimate VR enterprise software solution, specifically designed to help businesses solve today’s most pressing problems in a secure and innovative way. By putting the resources of HTC behind these apps, we can ensure business customers around the world receive the system scalability and professional support they demand.”

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