Microsoft HoloLens 2 And What It Means For Your Mixed Reality Line-of-business Startup
The new kid on the block is Microsoft’s HoloLens 2:
While it is definitely a solid device with a lot of advanced soft and hard tech in it, Microsoft are heavily narrowing the niche for third-parties to discover new use cases and build upon HoloLens 2. This post explains why.
Microsoft Now Own The Critical Apps
Remote Assistance — Dynamics 365 Remote Assist
One of the top use cases for Mixed Reality is the so called “Remote Assistance”. This software basically allows HoloLens users to remotely connect and collaborate with people that can provide them with on-site guidance and assistance. The bottom line is that through utilizing HoloLens, businesses can reduce the time and cost to train new employees and the need to send experts on the field.
Context-based, Guided Tutorials — Dynamics 365 Guides
Another top use case that multiple businesses are utilizing today, are the Guided Tutorials(Instructions). This is kind of similar to remote assistance but instead of real person guiding the user, context-based digital instructions are popped next to service technician’s eyes. This way they can easily correlate a tutorial with the practical process while keeping their hands free.
Interior Design at World Scale — Dynamics 365 Layout
Designing spaces by overlaying world-scale 3D models in a real environment has always been one of the top use cases of AR as a technology. IKEA was one of the first companies to enable this scenario for their customers. Despite of being a Mobile AR experience — which lacks the Stereoscopic 3D of head-mounted devices like HoloLens — the implementation delivered enormous value to their users. Microsoft take this to the next dimensions with HoloLens 2.
Solid Industry Partners Already Own The Rest
Let’s list the other top use cases for HMD Industrial AR and the already available solutions:
Remote collaboration/conferencing
Spatial — they’ve been demoed live at MWC ‘19:
Industrial 3D models overlaid at world-scale
Meet Trimble Mixed Reality and their applications — Trimble Connect and SketchUp Viewer:
Healthcare and monitoring
Siemens and Philips got this covered:
Siemens are coming soon to this segment but you can tell that their solution would be first-class as well:
Rapid Mixed Reality app development
PTC and Vuforia got this. Creating AR anchors and markers from physical and digital 3D object is as easy as following several steps in their PTC Studio. When combined with IoT data the possibilities are limitless:
Impressive List, Right?
There are even more solutions our there but the list is already overwhelming. From my perspective most, if not all, of the valuable business use cases are already covered by solid companies. If you are a startup that plans to use HoloLens 2 to solve a similar use case, then chances are that you will need to compete with one of the above solutions. Which is not necessarily a bad thing but it definitely makes your job way harder. Combine this with the price entry-barrier of $3500 per device and you get to a point where you will need to figure out a really disrupting use case to stand out of this crowd.
If you are a service company, however, chances are that you can help many existing business modernize and take advantage of HoloLens 2 and adapt these solutions for their production line.
Why Are Microsoft Doing This?
HoloLens 2 is all about business and enterprises. From my point of view it only makes sense for Microsoft to cover business-critical apps themselves and to partner with big logos to provide the rest. Imagine a mobile phone OS relying on third-parties to build the phone app, or the contacts app. Their business model narrows down to selling devices to enterprises and hooking them up in Azure. Besides Azure Intelligent Cloud and Edge, Microsoft also announced Azure Spatial Anchors, Azure Remote Rendering and Azure Kinect — services meant to hook you up to their Cloud. Which, again, is not a bad thing but rather a business model.
Wrap-up
HoloLens 2 is a solid device which takes head-mounted Augmented Reality to the next level of user experience. It is however primarily meant for businesses, not for consumers. Microsoft and partners are covering the most common and ROI-proved use cases, hence leaving a tiny niche for third parties to invent something new and disruptive. Am I right in my assumptions — only the future will show.
Thank you for reading — I hope that you will find this information useful. If you have different opinion — I’d love to hear it.
