Apple didn't originally market the iPhone or the iPad as business tools, but that's exactly what they've become. So what about Google Glass? Is it the next enterprise Trojan Horse?

It may seem unlikely. But several companies are already working to bring enterprise applications to Glass. And even if glass goes the way of the Apple Newton and Danger Sidekick, these early experiments could lay the groundwork for the future of augmented reality in the workplace.

Workday, a cloud-based business application company, is experimenting with building Glass apps, says VP of mobile and innovation Joe Korngiebel. It's too early to say whether the company will actually end up releasing a Glass app, but a few other companies have already developed business applications for Glass.

Fiberlink has already announced a Google Glass version of its MaaS360 application for monitoring and managing mobile devices in corporate environments. From Google Glass, customers will be able to view lists of managed devices as well as perform actions such as locking or remotely wiping phones. Also, Evernote, a company that originally targeted individuals but is now selling a business team-oriented product, developed a version of its product that can display saved text notes on Glass.

It's not hard to imagine more Glass applications, such as applications that display information about the customer a salesperson is talking to, or a task list that stays open in the periphery of your vision, constantly reminding you of what you need to be working on. But the big question is whether any of these applications will actually make you more productive at your job in a way that existing applications can't. That's what Workday is still trying to figure out. "The challenge is in adding real value," Korngiebel says.

For the Glass experiments, Workday is drawing on its experience developing its iPad and mobile apps. The iPad app began as an experiment in designing a touch-based alternative to the traditional organizational chart. What the team came up with was the "organizational swirl." After much testing and iteration, the swirl became the central interface for its tablet and touchscreen smartphone apps. What the company found is that although many white collar workers and executives have tablets and wanted to use Workday while away from their desks, the mobile apps were most useful for workers that never spent much time at desks to begin with.

Likewise, Glass may be most useful not to consumers or white collar workers, but to those working in hands-on environments. Sci-fi author and futurist Vernor Vinge told ReadWriteWeb in 2011 that augmented reality could be especially useful in medicine – especially endoscopic surgery – and high-tech equipment maintenance. And in 2010 SAP employee Timo Elliot built a proof of concept augmented reality app based on SAP Business Objects. Elliot envisioned future versions of the app being used by retail managers to pull up information about the items in a store, or by factory foremen to check the maintenance records of machinery.

Even if Workday ends up scrapping development of Glass apps, Korngiebel thinks the experiments could lead to something useful. Previous Workday Labs projects have failed, such as a facial recognition experiment. But that project eventually led to an integration between Workday's iPhone app and Apple's Siri tool.

Besides Glass, Workday is also experimenting with Microsoft's Kinect controller, and Korngiebel says the company will stay on the look out for cutting edge technologies to experiment with. "This is the type of technology that gets us excited, that keeps us going."