The metaverse is in its infancy, yet it is already struggling with so many expectations how many the actors that animate it feed: among these there is DXC Technology, a company born in 2017 from the merger between HP Enterprise Services and Computer Sciences Corporation, a giant in the market of high-end ICT solutions present in over 70 countries (including Italy ) which employs 130,000 people and which in 2021 had a turnover of 17.7 billion dollars.
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Working in the metaverse
Nathalie Vancluysen, global extended reality leader of DXC Technology, has relaunched the home office theme, that remote work that many have experienced during coronavirus-imposed closures, a phase that would have prompted 74% of companies to review their policies on face-to-face work. What is needed, in the interpretation of DXC Technology, is a higher degree of involvement of employees and tools, so as to increase the possibilities of online collaboration.
These considerations, combined with the immediately visible benefits of working in the metaverse, they lead to some evaluations, practical and more abstract.
In listing the benefits of working in the metaverse, the practical elements immediately catch the eye: lower costs for companies, including smaller physical spaces, lower ancillary costs and lower management costs. Smaller offices, less need for professional travel and even the ability to invite thousands of customers to events organized online, with positive effects on the environment as well. On the other side, the abstract advantages, however, risk being boulders that occlude the ways of the metaverse: in addition to the psychological repercussions that can affect those who work remotely (such as sense of loneliness and isolation), technologies are needed which promote the sharing of professional knowledge of individuals, which guarantee the plurality of opinions of employees and which allow the (almost) same inclusiveness that the physical office allows.
DXC has identified some key points that they understand 3D applications accessible via browsercontinuous training of employees and, last but not least, rapid and effective technical support that is able to solve the needs of workers less accustomed to the use of virtual systems.
Employees themselves are asking for it and, according to data held by DXC Technology, workers of the future will ask for it more insistently: 80% of generation Z (i.e. people born between 1995 and 2010) imagine a professional future enabled by high-level technologies.
A survey that DXC carried out among its collaborators in the area Emea (sigia stands for Europe, Middle East and Africa) gave results that point towards the use of the metaverse: for one in four employees it becomes a parameter on the basis of which to choose which company to work for and 88% of the sample openly asked DXC to invest as much as possible in virtualization of the environments of work.
Among the difficult problems to solve is that of security, as underlined by Mark Hughes, global security leader di DXC. In the metaverse, the employee assumes the role of an avatar, therefore it is necessary to check the identity of each one. Data privacy and security must be brought to the maximum levels that technology allows to reach and, in a more general sense, it is necessary to take into account the many cyber threats to which devices used by employees are exposed. Computers and mobile devices that are no longer physically within the company walls and whose maintenance (including software updates and access policies to company resources) should be carried out periodically and automatically, without the intervention of the employee. The rule is simple only on paper: the IT security it must be a layer of the metaverse and cannot be understood as something parallel. Saying it is one thing, putting it into practice is another. But these are the real problems that must be solved.
DXC’s choice
DXC presented its vision through the Virbela platform, designed to revolutionize the world of work. It is a virtual world in which they find office space, shopping malls, houses, streets, theaters, beaches and ponds complete with moored ships. Fully parameterizable, it allows you to create groups (in this specific case, the guests invited to the presentation) and to interact with the avatars, i.e. the participants.
Interaction that can take place through the voice or group and private chats, with avatars who enjoy freedom of movement and who can leak states of confusion and appreciation, who can shake hands with each other, clap and even dance. DXC has projected some slides on the virtual displays, and using the zoom participants were able to focus on the details that were most relevant to them. All interesting and beautiful, but perhaps still not very functional.
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Proof
To quell the haste of the most curious, let’s say right away that the result seemed positive to us. However, this does not correspond to full satisfaction: beyond the nice (but perfectible) graphics, the PCs used to take advantage of the platform need a certain amount of hardware. The client, or the software that must be installed to use the virtual spaces offered by Virbela, is expensive: it consumes 1.2 Gb of Ram immediately after starting it and uses the processor at a rate of about 30% (the cpu used is a 3.8 GHz 7th generation AMD A12, the gpu is instead a Radeon R7). This takes away oxygen and speed from other applications and theoretically usable at the same time, such as a browser and a text editor. Not an insuperable obstacle, but a necessity that can correspond with a decisive one upgrading of the hardware park of companies.
The road is long, and while Virbela’s efforts are headed in the right direction, there are still problems companies need to resolve before they get to the metaverse: the path is steep and not without obstacles, a bit like climbing a mountain. But once you get to the top, the view pays off any effort.