What is the Metaverse?
- The Metaverse is a virtual internet space represented by digital representations of people, places, and things where people will interact through AR, VR, Desktop computers, and mobile devices.
- You could say that Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams are already an example of a Metaverse. I am virtually in the meeting room, but I may be a static image or a live video. The Metaverse is about bringing people together to collaborate and engage.
- There will be many vendors that will play in this space—for example, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon. Every tech company, retailer, CPG, and entertainment business will want to join. There won't be one Metaverse but many Metaverses specific to commerce, gaming, education, entertainment, and the enterprise.
Pandemic
- For the past two years, the Covid pandemic has disrupted the way we work and where we work. People learned to be more efficient, but they missed opportunities to have spontaneous conversations and build relationships with others.
- The increase in remote work has created opportunities for all companies to build better digital workspaces to support collaboration, help people be productive, and, most importantly, feel like they are part of a community. This will lead to the Metaverse for Work.
- Microsoft is well-positioned to lead and monetize the potential and success of the Metaverse for Work.
What the Metaverse will do for Work
- Today the Metaverse is taking shape. Instead of e-learning, we will have immersive learning. This affects how we onboard new employees, develop new leaders, conduct meetings, collaborate, monitor supply chains, and optimize manufacturing plants.
- For example, the sales team can have real-life simulations with customers or visit stores virtually. You can visit a factory virtually to see how it performs using digital twins and VR.
Avatars
- You will likely be an avatar that acts and works differently from your real life in the Metaverse.
- Avatars will allow you to be yourself in new and exciting ways with the potential to open up a range of conversations that may be difficult in real life.
- This has the potential to positively impact diversity and inclusion in the enterprise, especially for those who are shy, introverted, speak a different language, or are disabled.
Microsoft Mesh and the Metaverse
- Microsoft describes Mesh as a "new mixed reality platform powered by Azure" that is built to create a sense of presence on a variety of devices. Microsoft Mesh will enable users to view and interact with mixed reality content together in a single virtual or actual space.
- Microsoft built Mesh from work they already had done (Azure Spatial Anchors, Azure Object Anchors, Azure Rendering) and from acquisitions (e.g., AltspaceVR bought in 2017)
- In November 2021, Microsoft unveiled their Metaverse solution for the Enterprise: Mesh for Microsoft Teams. The feature combines the mixed-reality capabilities of Microsoft Mesh, which allows people in different physical locations to collaborate and share holographic experiences, with the productivity tools of Microsoft Teams, where people can join virtual meetings, send chats, whiteboard, share documents, and more.
- Microsoft believes Mesh is a gateway to the Metaverse.
- This will allow organizations to build immersive spaces (i.e. metaverses) within their existing Teams' environment. And continue to access through existing smartphones, laptops, and Hololens headsets.
Understanding the Reality of How People Use Technology
- If you compare Microsoft and Meta's approaches for the Metaverse, Microsoft's is much more realistic.
- Meta may have a lead in consumers adopting VR headsets (with Oculus), but Microsoft is adapting technologies that are currently and widely in use.
- However, Microsoft will be able to provide VR headsets for the future with its mixed-reality headsets Hololens. However, they need to adapt to allow 3rd party VR headsets. Right now, their strategy only supports Hololens for VR/AR. They will need to create an opportunity for OEMs similar to that was created by the PC.
- The strength of Microsoft's approach over Meta's is the use of existing technologies that people already have and know how to use.
- For Microsoft Mesh, you continue to use your smartphones or laptops vs. Oculus Quest VR headsets for Meta's workspace. No need to buy expensive, clunky, and nausea-inducing headsets.
- Leveraging existing technologies that consumers are comfortable using eliminates the need for a total lifestyle adoption that Meta is proposing.
- Consider this, Microsoft Teams has over 145 million daily active users, whereas the total installed base of VR headsets is less than 17 million. This indicates that Microsoft has a potentially more significant user base than many VR users accessing Meta.
- These steps Microsoft is taking today put it in a great position to be the leader in the Metaverse.
Privacy Matters
- In 2021, we learned from Internal Facebook documents that the company prioritizes growth over consumers' safety. Microsoft has a better reputation for data privacy than Meta's. Whose recent challenges with protecting consumer privacy will be a challenge for its future success in the Metaverse.
- Meta will most likely focus on advertising to monetize the Metaverse. So your experience will likely involve a lot of your data going to advertisers, who are Meta's actual customers.
Microsoft's Grounded and Realistic Vision
- Right now, Microsoft has the most realistic strategy to enable the Metaverse. If the initial experience of the Metaverse is as a separate space with its data and applications, then Teams is already there.
- Their ability to leverage existing capabilities, like its Power Platform and Azure Cloud, allows for creating Metaverse apps that support supply chain, retail, and manufacturing business capabilities. These are all real-world needs, each of which can be enhanced and reinvented with Avatars, VR, and AR.
- The enterprise is the most prominent channel for virtual reality from a hardware perspective, but Teams is the most apparent manifestation of virtual reality’s potential from a software perspective.
- This intersection means that Microsoft has a big head start for the Metaverse.
