We’ve All Been Busy: Google Glass 2.0 Enterprise Edition Announced

Google announced that “businesses have been getting hands-on with Glass Enterprise Edition (EE),” gaining double digit productivity in the process. Its website lists 33 companies that have been quietly using Google Glass EE for the past two years as a hands-free device, for their hands-on workers. Workers activate the right application (with a quick “OK Glass” command) to visualize the workflow. They can connect with other coworkers to seek their expertise or to share what they see in a live video stream so they can collaborate and troubleshoot in real-time. They can access training videos or images annotated with instructions. After the work is done, they can tick out a quality assurance checklist to ensure they have performed the task to the required standard.

Other applications help employees pick out customers’ orders without needing a paper checklist; allow doctors to document a patient’s condition during the visit; and improve wiring technicians’ productivity.

Google has no less than twelve “Glass Partners” that can develop custom end-to-end solutions for a company’s unique needs. In fact, you don’t purchase a Glass as much as you purchase a solution from one or more of the Glass Partners that uses Glass technology.

This is not the Google Glass of social media we saw years earlier. This version is strictly a workplace tool.

Too bad, because Glass for Consumers would have had a brillant future had Google allowed it to continue. It had — and still has — the potential of replacing all the Apple iPads since it basically allows a user to do the same thing (request and consume information) with the advantage of keeping it all hands-free. Who knows, maybe a killer app will yet launch this device into the stratosphere. If Google does not make a consumer version available, it runs the risk of making the same mistake that BlackBerry made with its “enterprise” branded smartphones while the Apple iPhones targeted the consumers first, then the consumers brought it into the enterprise. Watch out for the Apple Glass/Specs/Eye?