HTC partners with Mozilla's Firefox, AWS Amazon Sumerian to bolster enterprise case for virtual reality apps

HTC is putting some enterprise application heft behind its Vive virtual reality system via partnerships with Mozilla's Firefox, AWS Amazon Sumerian and Fidelity investments as well as an eye tracking system.

The company has been focusing on developing enterprise content for its Vive virtual reality platform. HTC is already a go-to for developers and collaboration with AWS in particular is likely to help its corporate cause.

At CES 2019, HTC said it will work with AWS to leverage Sumerian to create and launch virtual reality experiences. Sumerian is designed to simplify augment reality and VR development as well as appeal to businesses looking to leverage the web.

HTC teases VR headset for the masses in Vive Cosmos (CNET) | HTC Vive aims to woo more businesses to VR via Vive Focus, Wave, Sync 

Firefox will optimize browsing for the HTV Vive platform and make it easier to support search, shopping and research. Firefox will also be the default browser.

As for the AWS partnership, HTC said it will integrate Sumerian with Viveport for publishing VR content and applications.

The Fidelity partnership is designed more to show what's possible with data visualization and investment management via VR.

For professional VR users, HTC launched Vive Pro Eye, which offers eye tracking to manage menus as well as control devices. Vive Pro Eye will allow businesses and developers to gather data about training environments and other enterprise tasks. Vive Pro Eye will launch in the second quarter.

Collectively, the software partnerships and enhancements around HTC Vive are likely to do more for VR adoption than hardware.

On the consumer front, HTC outlined enhancements to its subscription service as well as a headset for the masses called Cosmos.

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