In-depth: Is Microsoft placing its bet on the HoloLens?
Microsoft is a hugely successful company in the tech industry. From its innovation on the personal computer down to the latest smartphones running on its system, the company has gone a long way in developing technologies for mankind. With its recent developments on virtual reality, manifested by the HoloLens, Microsoft chooses a path that it never took before. It’s a big gamble to invest in the latest technologies, especially that virtual reality is still approaching maturity. But still, the tech company is very confident with their deck of cards. In the past years where Apple and Google, among others, have dominated the technology market, is the HoloLens the winning bet of Microsoft in this game? Read on to find out.
To give a broader perspective as to how Microsoft took a big leap forward, let’s use Apple as an example. Apple was once a dead-end company after Steve Jobs left it in the 90’s. In his return to the company he co-founded, it regained strength and reputation among the technology evangelists with the innovations they had during the times. In the late 90’s, the iMac was introduced – it was a hit, and it instantly became the choice for millions of consumers looking for a reliable computer. In the early 2000’s, the iPod took the music and tech industries by storm, carrying the tagline of “a thousand songs in your pocket”. And soon enough, Apple got a high level of consumer confidence that brought the company to where it is today. In the case of Microsoft, it never innovated much in the past few years. Undoubtedly the Windows platform is still the most popular operating system for billions of people and millions of industries that greatly depend on its ever-reliable nature. But with the recent innovations in consumer tech products that companies like Apple and Samsung, among others, have released to the public, Microsoft has become a laggard in the game of consumer technology.
Now, Microsoft is taking their chance in regaining what they’ve missed in this game of tech innovations in the form of HoloLens. HoloLens promises to change the way we do personal computing for better. It has a great potential for a lot of practical uses in many aspects of our everyday life. It demonstrated its capabilities for a futuristic interaction of the user and on-screen content. Productivity will also benefit from its handsfree advantage in certain circumstances. General entertainment also sees a big future with the HoloLens, most especially in gaming and media consumption. The HoloLens is a big gamble for Microsoft in such a way that virtual reality and augmented reality technologies are still gaining traction – compared to Apple and Google’s market approach where their innovations are basically reinventions: by looking in the fundamentals of existing technologies that we know, see, and use.
Microsoft plays its ace in the HoloLens. Whether this piece of hardware will be on the frontline of the future, we still have to see and find out. VR technologies like the HoloLens is making a path leading to what’s next, yet we can’t see the path until it is proven.
For more information on the Microsoft HoloLens, please visit the following websites:
http://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us
http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/21/7868251/microsoft-hololens-hologram-hands-on-experience
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/microsoft-hands-on/
