Microsoft's Mesh Platform for Mixed Reality Puts Microsoft at the Forefront of XR Collaboration

Moor Insights & Strategy has long viewed Microsoft as one of the biggest platform players in the XR space, with its HoloLens AR headset, Windows MR VR headsets and Windows Mixed Reality platform. While many of Microsoft's competitors, such as Facebook and Apple, are vertically integrated, Microsoft's approach is much more ecosystem-focused and extends this opportunity to others. To understand Microsoft's Mesh announcement, you must understand that Microsoft's goal is to enable mixed reality applications for business and run them on Azure cloud services. This was evident when Microsoft announced Hololens 2 at MWC 2019 in Barcelona.

Microsoft Mesh

While Microsoft has methodically given up on making Hololens 2 more usable to enterprises over the past two years, it has also sought to create and assemble the components that make up Microsoft Mesh. Microsoft announced Mesh on March 3, 2021 at the company's Ignite conference for customers and developers of those customers.

Mesh is the company's connectivity for mixed reality collaboration, both as an app and as a service. Microsoft Mesh leverages Azure to enable people using different types of devices and in different physical locations to join and collaborate in a shared holographic space. While Microsoft produced Hololens 2 and partnered with most major PC manufacturers such as HP to create Windows Mixed Reality VR headsets, Microsoft Mesh is designed to be device and operating system independent. And yes, while AltspaceVR is one of the first apps to support Mesh, more cross-platform, Microsoft productivity apps, and 3rd party apps will be in Mesh in Preview soon.

Highlights of the Mesh Keynote

During Ignite's keynote, Microsoft showcased the power of Mesh by dedicating its entire keynote to AltspaceVR. Microsoft offered the audience, who use phones and are not in the hall due to the current situation, the opportunity to attend the launch and have the first experience with Hololens 2, Windows Mixed Reality and VR headsets.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella kicked off the keynote with a 2D video. While Alex Kipman was not physically present at the presentation, much of the keynote was spatially immersive. At one point, when Alex Kipman was talking about the oceans, the audience became immersed in the presentation and chose the fish they wanted the presentation to swim around. A key component of increasing users' interest in spatial computing is allowing users to physically participate and influence their own experiences. After that, Alex Kipman spoke with John Hanke, CEO of Niantic (makers of Pokémon Go), who joined as the AltspaceVR avatar, about the future of AR apps, and John showed off the concept trailer for Pokémon Go for Hololens 2. The concept is still far from being a working application, so we can think of it as a reflection of some of Microsoft's ideas for consumer applications that could use Mesh outside of its current corporate focus. This concept video, which was made to look at the future of the consumer, got many people very excited about Microsoft Mesh and Hololens.

Mesh Supports OpenXR

The interesting thing about Microsoft Mesh is that it helps create basic-level features that people can get used to mixed reality collaboration with. Microsoft is one of the biggest supporters of the OpenXR standard; This means that the company wants to help standardize a certain level of industry common XR functions, APIs, and the job of managing critical inputs like hand tracking and eye tracking. Microsoft's adoption of OpenXR helped solve the XR fragmentation issue and contributed to Microsoft's desire to support many XR devices simultaneously.

As OpenXR has become mainstream in the industry, there has been a growing number of XR devices that Mesh has and must support from Microsoft's competitors such as Magic Leap, Facebook, HTC, and Valve. Microsoft Mesh would have been much more difficult to succeed without OpenXR and we are already beginning to see some of the benefits around open industry standards. Microsoft has taken a much more open source approach to software development and ecosystems over the past few years, and this approach has been well rewarded. This approach will likely apply to the XR as well. In the early days of XR, Microsoft is already planting the seeds needed for the industry to sprout when conditions are right.

Microsoft is not only taking an open-source approach with Mesh, but also working with enterprise-grade security features such as secure login, session management, and privacy compliance. When you look at Microsoft's competitors, some don't have the security and privacy background Microsoft has and are much less likely to be considered serious for XR applications that contain business sensitive data. Microsoft is uniquely positioned as the core technology provider for XR collaboration with a platform like Mesh. It seems that Microsoft is determined not to stand back and watch developments like other players in this field.

Conclusion

Currently, Microsoft's two Mesh implementations are Microsoft Mesh for Hololens and AltspaceVR for Windows Mixed Reality headsets. AltspaceVR is an app that Microsoft saved from being shut down in 2017, and today that seems like a good decision. Multi-user collaboration will be one of the key applications for XR, especially as the global pandemic and remote work continue to grow. It will take time for mixed reality collaboration to become as commonplace as video or audio calls, but Mesh brings us much closer to that reality. Microsoft hopes to include Mesh in collaboration apps like Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365, but apps like PowerPoint or even Excel are also possible. If it's easy enough to integrate Mesh, it shouldn't be too much trouble for Microsoft to integrate it into first-party applications where it makes the most sense. It's also not unreasonable to think that Microsoft will lay the groundwork for educational apps to take advantage of the Mesh already in place and foster more engaging and immersive educational experiences for students around the world.