A year after the overall strategy changed from "mobile first, cloud first" to "smart cloud and smart edge computing", Microsoft recently handed over the transcript of the first anniversary of its hybrid real hardware product HoloLens.
As the next-generation hardware products that Microsoft has given high hopes, although the current sales volume and number of developers in China have not been released, Jared Andersen, China Strategy Director of Microsoft Surface and HoloLens Products, has determined that China has become Microsoft HoloLens outside the United States. The second largest market.
"From the perspective of the current trajectory and speed of the Chinese market, we believe that China will become the largest market for Microsoft's mixed reality." Jared Andersen explained this in an interview with the media including the First Financial.
Behind this, Microsoft, which has missed the mobile terminal, especially the mobile phone market, is trying to seize the next generation market through HoloLens.
This time, Microsoft, which is good at making money through the ecosystem in the Windows era, hopes to use HoloLens to build a huge ecosystem of mixed reality, bringing device manufacturers and software developers in the field into their arms.
About 50,000 copies sold worldwide
According to Lorraine Bardeen, director of Microsoft's Global Mixed Reality Studio, the number of Global Mixed Reality Partners (MRPPs) cultivated in China has reached 12 in the past 12 months; covering education, healthcare, construction, automotive, manufacturing, aerospace, and broadcasting. In addition, Microsoft has also reached a strategic cooperation with the Ministry of Education to build a mixed reality laboratory to jointly cultivate relevant talents.
In an interview with First Financial News, Lorraine Bardeen admitted that the above transcripts have been a surprise result for Microsoft.
According to public information, Microsoft announced at the annual Build conference in 2016 that the HoloLens Developer Suite was officially launched in the US and Canada, at a price of $3,000.
One year later, in May 2017, Microsoft announced that HoloLens entered China, while the commercial suite and developer versions were priced at $39,188 and $23,488, respectively.
“HoloLens only officially came to China 12 months ago. We didn’t have a partner or an ecosystem at the time.†Jared Andersen found in the past year’s contacts, whether in the construction industry, the medical industry, the education industry. Compared with other markets, Chinese companies are more willing to try to use technologies such as AR and MR to solve some problems encountered in reality.
Jared Andersen believes that the high degree of willingness of Chinese companies is mainly determined by some special factors of China's economy and population. For example, the uneven distribution of medical resources makes doctors use HoloLens to assist remote surgery. In some specific manufacturing industries such as automobile and aerospace manufacturing, China is the hub of overall decentralized manufacturing activities, and HoloLens is needed to achieve cross-regional Development and manufacturing work is also more attractive.
Although Microsoft did not give specific sales data, it was revealed that Microsoft has sold about 50,000 HoloLens worldwide.
And a high price of more than 20,000 yuan has been interpreted by the industry as a hindrance to the large-scale commercial use of HoloLens. After all, whether it is a developer or a business user, it is basically necessary to purchase multiple HoloLens devices to work together, which also makes the cost of HoloLens eventually landing.
In this regard, Lorraine Bardeen's explanation is that HoloLens has positioned "independent computing devices that can be combined with reality" at the beginning of product design, which determines the high cost of parts and production. “Although it’s a bit expensive, HoloLens is a computing device that is independent of other constraints. The positioning of this starting point will not change.â€
Lorraine Bardeen believes that for this new technology of mixed reality, customers need to go through three phases: concept evaluation, pilot phase and promotion deployment. “China’s customers are currently in a very satisfactory transition period in these three phases. Although many customers are in the pilot phase, there are also customers entering the promotion and deployment phase.â€
MR ecosystem ambition
It is worth mentioning that at the Build 2018 Microsoft Global Developer Conference, Microsoft released a new Microsoft Remote Assist and Microsoft Layout application, both of which are designed to further expand the application of mixed reality in the commercial field. .
Among them, Microsoft Remote Assist enables front-line employees to obtain remote guidance and collaboration from technical experts through video calls, image sharing, and mixed reality annotations in a visible, hands-free manner.
And Microsoft Layout allows users to design space in a mixed real world that is integrated with the real world. By importing a 3D model, you can create a real-sized room, allowing users to experience the actual effect of the design in a real physical space or in a world of complete virtual reality.
According to Jared Andersen, HoloLens is a new generation of computing devices, like Surface Pro, Surface Hub, and Surface Hub2, which are products that have changed the impact of the entire collaborative office.
In fact, in addition to its own HoloLens production, Microsoft now licenses technology to third-party partners through technology licensing. Companies such as Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard, 3Glasses and Dell have used Microsoft's technology to launch their own VR hardware products.
"In the future, Microsoft will continue to do so. Not only will technology be used in its own first-party hardware production, but also through licensing to third parties, there will be more third-party hardware products produced, which will also make us the whole mix. The real ecosystem has become richer,†explains Jared Andersen.
In other words, Microsoft's Windows MR is really just a platform, it is just the first step in Microsoft's layout of mixed reality, and HoloLens is just the beginning.
Behind this, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has publicly stated that MR and AI are one of the key technologies leading the next generation of computing. And MR can combine virtual reality with reality, so that people will no longer be limited by geospatial space. They can get a lot of virtual experience and interact with virtual objects without taking the door. AI will further empower these experiences, allowing us to go beyond time and space constraints.
MR with VR to get the best AR or VR experience. The most important point is that it is optional. Microsoft provides users and customers who only connect to a single platform with access to the entire AR, VR and MR.
Alex Kipman, known as the father of HoloLens, published a blog post in February this year, saying that at the beginning Microsoft focused on AR
This means that from the perspective of Microsoft, AI and MR will have a very close combination. For example, Microsoft's artificial intelligence voice assistant Xiao Bing can now write poetry and paint, and can become your good friend. Once you give Xiao Bing a good-looking 3D image, let her appear in your real life, that is, AI and MR is combined.
In the social era of combining AI and MR in the future, Microsoft also has LinkedIn, a social platform that has been acquired by the company.
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