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Microsoft admitted this week that it missed the mobile market, but analysts believe it has a better chance in what might be the next big technology platform: virtual reality.
So far Facebook’s Oculus Rift, Valve and HTC’s Vive and Sony’s Project Morpheus are frontrunners in the sector, which is expected to take off next year when most of the devices go on sale.
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But Microsoft’s HoloLens takes the technology a step further into “augmented reality” or “mixed reality”. Its headset superimposes digital images over a transparent screen that also allows the viewer to see the real world.
Early demonstrations have included playing Minecraft, the world-building game Microsoft bought for $2bn, designing a motorcycle or being guided through DIY tasks via Skype, although the company has been vague about when the device will go on sale to consumers.
“It’s more than just a shiny demo,” says Brian Blau, analyst at Gartner Research. “It’s real and it works fairly well, for what it is.”
The project is by some distance the most eye-catching of Satya Nadella’s initiatives as Microsoft chief executive. So his reputation is likely to depend on making HoloLens a success — even if it is unlikely to be as financially significant to the company in the near term as its Windows 10 or Office 365 software.
When HoloLens was unveiled in January, analysts at CCS Insight called it “a glimpse into a project that could help shape the next era of computing”. The analysts also saw it as “an important endorsement of the changes under Mr Nadella’s leadership” because he brought the device out of Microsoft’s R&D labs and thrust it towards a commercial release.
Microsoft’s venerable research labs have come up with breakthrough technologies before but the company has not always succeeded in commercialising them, as its early efforts in smartwatches and tablets attest. Even in the six months since its debut, more recent HoloLens prototypes have seen a reduction in the field of view where digital objects are visible, and issues such as battery life for the untethered headset remain a big question.
“I don’t know that the hype they are trying to give to the product and the product development cycle will meet everyone’s expectations,” Mr Blau said. Microsoft failed to convince app developers to design for its smartphone platform, and it may have trouble wooing them back from Apple and Google to work on projects for HoloLens, he added.
Still, if the company can solve these technical and commercial challenges, the opportunity could be huge.
Tim Merel, managing director of Digi-Capital, a Silicon Valley-based adviser, has estimated that VR and AR could become a $150bn market by 2020.
“HoloLens could allow Microsoft to leapfrog its major competitors and reclaim the glory lost to Apple in the last decade,” Mr Merel said.
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