Google Glass off the shelves as Just Eat pronounces the device 'rubbish' and reveals it will not develop for the hardware

Google adamant that the device is not dead

Google has stopped releasing its wearable Google Glass hardware for sale, but insists the product is not dead and is instead off the shelves to allow the company to focus on developing newer, better devices.

But this didn't stop Matt Braddy, CMO of takeaway app firm Just Eat, from branding the device "rubbish" and comparing it unfavourably to "virtual reality" device Oculus Rift.

Speaking at SAP's Leaders Meet Innovation conference yesterday, Braddy chastised delegates for not trying out Oculus Rift, after a show of hands suggested hardly anyone had tested it.

"Why haven't you all got Oculus Rifts?" he asked.

"You're leaders, and you're not even trying new things? Why is it? You're too busy - you're controlling other areas of the business."

Braddy suggested Google Glass is far inferior to Oculus Rift - which Facebook acquired for $2bn last year.

"Google Glass is rubbish. It's rubbish," he said.

"We got one in and everyone was excited for about 10 minutes, and then you couldn't give it away. It was rubbish. So we are not working on a Google Glass app at the moment," he said.

"Then we got an Oculus Rift in and it's magic, it's like witchcraft. We can't get people off it. It will blow your mind. So why don't you have that experience as leaders in business? It'll cost you less than two grand to get that in your office."

Braddy said what's happening in the entertainment space is a good indication of what will happen in enterprises in a few years' time.

Ahmed Hassan, chief digital officer at General Electric, agreed that businesses need to keep an eye on developments in the consumer space.

"It's not about jumping on the fashionable trend, but trying to find value in it, which is the challenge.

"You'll notice that Google Glass is hardly spoken about anymore. Sometimes the technology is so far ahead, but the important thing is to try - to bring it in-house and try and understand what it can do."

Google Glass was launched in the US in 2013, but so far uptake has been largely confined to self-consciously hip tech bloggers, mainly due to its cripplingly short battery life and ongoing concerns about privacy.

In contrast, what Computing has seen of Oculus Rift suggests it could be a useful device for certain business scenarios. For example, we've seen Oculus Rift used to train engineers in how to fix telegraph poles.

As the wearables market finally begins to move beyond watches, 2015 could see new, genuinely useful enterprise devices begin to appear.