PokemonGo is no more a child’s play. There are over 21 million Daily Active Users just in the USA, claims surveymonkey. Within the first week of its launch, it continues to pull people of all age groups into it. And the downside is, it is pulling down the servers due to overload. It already has surpassed Twitter and Tinder in terms of number of users. And all these initial users numbers are coming from just few countries where PokemonGo has been released until now. Imagine what would happen when it is launched globally, specially in Asia.
It is not just these numbers that attracted me to take a serious look at PokemonGo. It is the technology and its potential impact on enterprise computing that made me sit and wonder (or rather got me out of the chair and took me out for Pokemon hunting). I am not alone in this quest. If you look at the amount of coverage given by business and technology media, you would realize how serious is this child’s play is. Forbes has a write up on “How PokemonGo will influence enterprise computing and business forever”.
On CNBC, though the writer has covered Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s comments in the context of its own AR headset, the article goes on to quote GE’s Jeffrey Immelt in the context of how Augmented Reality is going to have an impact on industrial engineering. Bloomberg has also talked about how this game means lot of money to its originator and how it already has impacted Nintendo’s share prices, adding almost $7 billion to its market share.
By all accounts it is not just about one gaming application, it is more about how this game app has converted long talked possibility into reality. Augmented Reality is not new to the technology world. A lot has been written, experimented and many attempts have been made to make it into everyday reality. Google Glasses, Microsoft’s  Hololense etc. all have been trying to marry the real world with internet world. Users have not liked the gadgets and have not been enthusiastic about these.
What PokemonGo has done is to marry the real world, Google maps and Gaming environment all through a simple Smartphone camera. This has excited the users like never before. And this is a great lesson for enterprise applications. Very often enterprises have followed the technologies delivered in consumer world. Adoption of internet and Smartphones have shown this fact.  Even the application development has followed the social media trends
Similarly, the possibilities made real by PokemonGo would have huge impact on consumerisation of Enterprise Business.
At the immediate level, already the security experts have warned the potential implications of users playing PokemonGo within the company. Apart from the security threats there are many areas where cross section of maps, immediate surrounding and camera can be leveraged to deliver multiple services. Some of the service delivery channels would be able to take totally different shape. For example :

• Government to Citizen services : Verification of land records and ownership details. One can simply point the camera and can get the information about the ownership, titles, plot size, plot boundaries etc. on the mobile phone.

• Repair and Maintenance Services : Getting things right at the first time is the need in industrial sector. There are multiple factors such as you cannot afford to go wrong, time window available is limited ( due to weather or due to business pressure) or you are at a remote location etc. In these situations, imagine that through your simple camera you are able to take help from experts sitting remotely. Going further, some of the repairs and maintenance can be delivered by robots through these technologies.

• E-commerce, Fashion and Retail Industry : These industries can revolutionize customer experience.

• Healthcare industry : This could have one of the largest impacts. There are already lot of projects going on to deliver sophisticated services, but by making things available through mobile devices can dramatically bring down the cost.

• Banking and Telecom : Though there may be some regulatory limitations, but this industry can leapfrog its customer services experience.

The possibilities are immense. Tech world has always been waiting to see them become reality at affordable and easy to use manner. PokemonGo has shown the way forward. So Let’s Go where PokemonGoes.