Konica Minolta has announced the first partner to join the Konica Minolta “Alliance Program”, signing a memorandum of understanding with Deutsche Telekom to jointly develop and market innovative technology solutions.
Through the “Alliance Program”, Konica Minolta is partnering with other leading technology companies globally to identify synergies and value-adding products, services and solutions to drive mutually beneficial new business opportunities.
Alliance partnerships will provide joint clients with standardised and scalable solutions built around the best of each partner’s technology and expertise.
The partnership with Deutsche Telekom provides mutual value elements to both companies and is the first of several strategic partnerships that will be announced in the near future.
The collaboration starts with bringing together Konica Minolta’s wearable augmented reality (AR) solution AIRe Lens for industrial applications with advanced mobile network services from Deutsche Telekom. It enables the smart glasses to be enhanced with mobile connectivity allowing for use in remote applications. This can be utilised on public mobile networks or industrial campus networks based on LTE and 5G NR. An embedded connectivity module will allow seamless integration of advanced mobile connectivity to the smart glasses. Together, both Konica Minolta and Deutsche Telekom will further evaluate and collaborate on this pioneering solution.
“We are proud to welcome Deutsche Telekom to the Konica Minolta ‘Alliance Program’”, said Ikuo Nakagawa, Senior Executive Officer, Digital Workplace Business Unit, Konica Minolta, Inc. “Our goal is to create best-in-class offerings, effective marketing strategies and reliable services that delight customers. We are already seeing the realisation of this ambition by working with Deutsche Telekom to use our respective expertise and channel operations to help pioneer a new market built on the convergence of augmented reality and 5G.”
Antje Williams, SVP 5G Campus Networks, Deutsche Telekom adds: “We believe in partnering with experienced, industry leading partners to develop and offer truly end-to-end solutions to our customers. We are delighted to collaborate with Konica Minolta and integrate their highly innovative and specialist device technology into our Campus Networks solutions to meet customer demand to use hands-free AR for industrial applications.”
AIRe Lens is such a hands-free AR solution created for manufacturing or maintenance environments that makes complex manual tasks simpler and faster at a lower cost of operations. The application provides step-by-step guidance and remote assistance. It is optimised to ensure operator safety and can be worn in comfort for an entire work shift. Additional value is realised from reduction of CO2 emissions when travel is eliminated via the remote assistance functionality.
“The close collaboration and the strong commitment of both companies provide a foundation as a co-operative outlook for the future. We will constantly work to ensure that our existing partnerships will continue to expand with solutions and services from other business fields like augmented reality”, Christian Link, Manager Strategic Alliances, Konica Minolta Business Solutions Europe, concludes.
Konica Minolta will also be present with its solutions on 29 October and 30 October at DIGITAL X 2019 – the leading European digitalisation initiative at decision-maker level that turns Cologne into the hotspot for innovation and transformation topics.
www.konicaminolta.eu
