Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 70 | Page 23

INFOGRAPHIC an idealistic version and only 10 % would pick a pop culture figure .
Globally , 71 % of professionals can see the metaverse becoming part of existing work practices and 40 % think their business will move away from traditional / static collaboration environments to more immersive and virtual reality-based environments in the next two years .
Despite growing interest among working professionals , barriers to widespread business adoption of immersive technologies still exist . According to survey participants , network reliability is a higher concern than the belief that immersive applications / tools are not yet widely available .
“ Clearly , the business world is ready to move to the metaverse and start using enhanced reality tools for collaboration and innovation ,” said Steve Alexander , Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Ciena . “ Network reliability may be seen as a barrier to making this possible today , but service providers know the demand is there and are already investing and testing to make networks faster , smarter and bring them closer to the user .
“ We will continue to hear talk around what the metaverse is or could be in the coming months and years , but none of the exciting use cases can be achieved without a robust underlying network , laced with the latest and greatest technologies that support the ultra-low latency and high bandwidth that enhanced reality demands .” p
According to survey participants , network reliability is a higher concern than the belief that immersive applications / tools are not yet widely available .
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