From: Bob Stone Subject: ANNOUNCE: VR Solutions Ltd Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 07:54:19 +0000 Message-ID: <831624920.26883.0@vrsolns.demon.co.uk> ANNOUNCEMENT: 1996 Successes for UK's No. 1 VR Development Company VR Solutions Limited, Europe's longest established and foremost VR applications development and consultancy company, has hit all the financial and technical targets set out by its Board of Directors, having only been trading as a limited company for 6 months. Based in Salford in the North of England and having its roots in the UK's Advanced Robotics Research Initiative (1988), VR Solutions has grown from 2 to 9 people in the space of 18 months. Prof. Bob Stone, Director & General Manager says, "I am personally very proud that such a small team can achieve so much in terms of delivering demonstrator after demonstrator to industries with real VR applications needs. We have been committed to investing in our team's ability to deliver independent and quality solutions for our clients, rather than on sophisticated VR facilities and glossy PR campaigns. I believe that maintaining our goal of independence has really paid off". Already having been credited by the Financial Times in September, 1995 as "turning the tide" of fortune for industrial Virtual Reality applications, just some of the success stories over the past 6 months include: * The delivery of a state-of-the-art report and novel desktop VR (Superscape-hosted) tactile feedback glove system for the UK's Defence Research Agency; * The winning of a prestigious consultancy contract to advise the UK's Department of Trade & Industry on the national and international VR technology and market scene; * The launch, in conjunction with Virtual Presence Limited, of MISTVR - a part-task minimally invasive surgical skills trainer; * The completion of an immersive and desktop VR prototyping tool for British Nuclear Fuels Ltd's control room programmes; * The staging of successful "Phase II" demonstrations of immersive and projection VR for nuclear submarine prototyping for Vickers Shipbuilding & Engineering Limited; * The completion, in just 6 weeks, of 3 immersive games scenarios for a new BBC Television series, "Relatively Speaking"; * The delivery of "immersive/desktop VR in a briefcase" (Pentium laptop with i-Glasses and Space Mouse) for industrial site marketing on the part of the Development Board for Rural Wales; * Completion of an interactive microtechnology optical interface project in 3 days for an important Government-sponsored business event in the North West of England; * The highly successful delivery of an Pentium Pro/Intergraph-based future concept store development system using VR for Sainsbury's; * Success in delivering VR for Salford's bid for the Lowry Centre (a flagship project bringing art science and technology together in a state-of-the-art facility within the North West's docklands region). The Team's VR efforts were acknowledged as being a major factor in the success of the Salford bid to the Millennium Commission. Stone, who on May 9 received the Royal Aeronautical Society's Sir Vernon Brown award for the best 1995 paper on aircraft maintenance (together with Jim Angus of Rolls-Royce plc) predicts more successful announcements in the near future, with the launch of the English Heritage/Intel Virtual Stonehenge project at London's Planetarium on June 21 (the Summer Solstice) and the unveiling of the virtual Mir Space Station Project with the Russian Cosmonaut Training Centre that same week at the Royal Society. At least 3 major engineering and 2 retail projects are in the pipeline for 1996/1997, cementing VR Solutions' position as the UK's Number 1 applications company. Many of VR Solutions' projects will, this year, become integrated within the business processes of the Company's collaborators, not for research and development purposes, but for hard commercial use. "Follow-on projects, not to mention new studies in new market sectors are coming through the door at an impressive rate", says Stone, "I foresee another period of growth for the Company this year, so we can meet the demand of an enthusiastic British industrial user base. Very soon now we will be able to point with confidence at industries who can demonstrate once and for all that VR is helping them to make significant commercial savings and bringing them serious competitive advantage". For more details on VR Solutions Limited and specific projects, contact: Prof. Bob Stone Director & General Manager VR Solutions Limited University Road Salford M5 4PP U.K. Tel.: (+44) (0)161-745-7384 Fax.: (+44) (0)161-745-8264 r.stone@vrsolns.co.uk [MODERATOR'S NOTE: Commercial postings are offered on this newsgroup as a public service. Their appearance here does not indicate endorsement by the moderators or by the USENET or its administrators.]