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b'PTC LiveWorx is\\none of the biggest gatherings of up-and-coming XR tech in the\\nindustry. With all sorts of amazing future tech demos, PTC\\u2019s\\nExecutive VP of AR Products Mike Campbell understands how businesses\\nmight want to implement the most far-out features of XR technology\\nright away. But he says there\\u2019s plenty AR can do perfectly right now\\nthat more industries should take advantage of.\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\n\\nAlan: You\\u2019re listening to the XR\\nfor Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today\\u2019s episode\\nis with Mike Campbell, executive vice president of Augmented Reality\\nProducts at PTC. Mike leads the Vuforia product team, and is\\nresponsible for driving the product and technology strategy of PTC\\u2019s\\nleading solutions for the development of augmented reality\\napplications. You can learn more about the work they\\u2019re doing at\\nptc.com. \\n\\n\\n\\n\\nMike, welcome to the show.\\n\\n\\n\\nMike: Hey, Alan, it\\u2019s great to\\nbe here. Thanks for having me.\\n\\n\\n\\nAlan: It\\u2019s my absolute pleasure.\\nI\\u2019ve been really, really looking forward to this, because I went to\\nLiveWorx in\\u2026 was it June?\\n\\n\\n\\nMike: June, yep.\\n\\n\\n\\nAlan: My God. I had no idea,\\nfirst of all, how big PTC was and how important Vuforia and\\nyour augmented reality strategy is going to be and is becoming to all\\nsorts of different industries. I got to fix a tractor. I got to work\\non an ATV. I got to look in retail. Is there any industries that this\\nwon\\u2019t affect?\\n\\n\\n\\nMike: Well, PTC\\u2019s focus is\\nreally in the industrial enterprise domain. And I would say across\\nall of the verticals there \\u2014 heavy equipment, automotive, aerospace,\\nmedical devices \\u2014 I mean, all of those places are ripe for\\ntransformation, thanks to the power of augmented reality.\\n\\n\\n\\nAlan: It\\u2019s amazing. You even had\\na boat there.\\n\\n\\n\\nMike: We did, we did, yeah. One\\nof our customers is Beneteau.\\n\\n\\n\\nAlan: Yeah. So let\\u2019s start from\\nthe beginning here. What is PTC? What do you guys do? Where did it\\ncome from? Let\\u2019s start there.\\n\\n\\n\\nMike: Ok. So PTC is a billion-dollar plus software company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. We have been around for a long time and we got our start back in the late 80s, early 90s by revolutionizing the 3D solid modeling industry. Basically, we invented a better mousetrap that allowed companies to create products virtually in 3D much faster and more effectively than ever before. Fast forward from then, we not only have a 3D solid modeling CAD offering, we have a great offering used in engineering for lifecycle management. And about 10 years ago, we recognized the trend of the Internet of Things, this explosion of connectivity and ubiquity of sensors, and companies wanting to leverage that information so that they could create products and manufacture products and service products better. We invested pretty heavily at that time. And once we did that, we were thinking a lot about this idea of IOT and products broadcasting information about themselves in the form of digital data. And we were thinking about our 3D heritage and we recognized that augmented reality was a great way to unlock some of that digital data in the context of the physical world, where you do your work. And that\\u2019s really what got us into AR. I have been at PTC \\u2014 as you said \\u2014 for a long, long time. And I\\u2019ve been involved in our AR journey since the beginning and it\\u2019s been a fantastic ride.\\n\\n\\n\\nAlan: Vuforia was an\\nacquisition. Was that something that you guys made a decision to\\u2013\\ncan we build this in-house, or should we just acquire it? How did\\nthat come about?\\n\\n\\n\\nMike: So we were th'