What is Microsoft going to do? Remember what they said........

[Piggie]

Cast your minds back many years and I think many people here remember only too well what Steve Balmer said at the time about the iPhone when it's design and price was first announced.
Yes, even he is very well aware of what happened and how he got it wrong.

I'm sure Bill Gates has also said how much Microsoft missed the Smartphone era and came in too late (which was a shame as I kinda liked the tile based OS)
But it was too late and by then Apple and Google had established iOS and Android and there really was not space in the market for a third OS and getting devs to create for it.

Anyway......... So the BIG names at Microsoft admitted they mis-read the market, got it wrong, and they have said they have learned and they won't let this happen again.

So.......

Here we are with a "potential" and "possible" start (yes I know VR/AR has been out for years) But we are still in the early days.
So, here we are again at a possible pivot in tech.

So, where is Microsoft this time?
Are they going to stick to their "We won't miss out like we did with the smartphone" statements?

Personally I don't think they really care. They can stick Office, and CoPilot and Cloud gaming onto anything they like, and their giant cloud business. They are doing just amazing without worrying about throwing billions into needing to develop hardware.
They can run and make money on others hardware.

Do you think they will re-visit AR/VR hardware at some point in time, or do you feel they are happy to just sit back, rake in the money and let others Apple/Meta etc struggle with the actual equipment?

 

[dhershberger]

Microsoft HoloLens

Landing page for Microsoft HoloLens.

www.microsoft.com

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

HoloLens is not a bad starting point. In many ways they are ahead. They need to revamp and make the OS more cohesive. But it would be good if they could provide some competition. Frankly, Meta is better situated to be competitive.

The question is do they have a shameless and good enough thief with enough 'juice' to do whatever the heck he wants to to make good enough knockoff (like google did with android).

 

[dontwalkhand]

Cast your minds back many years and I think many people here remember only too well what Steve Balmer said at the time about the iPhone when it's design and price was first announced.
Yes, even he is very well aware of what happened and how he got it wrong.

I'm sure Bill Gates has also said how much Microsoft missed the Smartphone era and came in too late (which was a shame as I kinda liked the tile based OS)
But it was too late and by then Apple and Google had established iOS and Android and there really was not space in the market for a third OS and getting devs to create for it.

Anyway......... So the BIG names at Microsoft admitted they mis-read the market, got it wrong, and they have said they have learned and they won't let this happen again.

So.......

Here we are with a "potential" and "possible" start (yes I know VR/AR has been out for years) But we are still in the early days.
So, here we are again at a possible pivot in tech.

So, where is Microsoft this time?
Are they going to stick to their "We won't miss out like we did with the smartphone" statements?

Personally I don't think they really care. They can stick Office, and CoPilot and Cloud gaming onto anything they like, and their giant cloud business. They are doing just amazing without worrying about throwing billions into needing to develop hardware.
They can run and make money on others hardware.

Do you think they will re-visit AR/VR hardware at some point in time, or do you feel they are happy to just sit back, rake in the money and let others Apple/Meta etc struggle with the actual equipment?

Microsoft has their own $3,500 headset.

 

[Lobwedgephil]

Cast your minds back many years and I think many people here remember only too well what Steve Balmer said at the time about the iPhone when it's design and price was first announced.
Yes, even he is very well aware of what happened and how he got it wrong.

I'm sure Bill Gates has also said how much Microsoft missed the Smartphone era and came in too late (which was a shame as I kinda liked the tile based OS)
But it was too late and by then Apple and Google had established iOS and Android and there really was not space in the market for a third OS and getting devs to create for it.

Anyway......... So the BIG names at Microsoft admitted they mis-read the market, got it wrong, and they have said they have learned and they won't let this happen again.

So.......

Here we are with a "potential" and "possible" start (yes I know VR/AR has been out for years) But we are still in the early days.
So, here we are again at a possible pivot in tech.

So, where is Microsoft this time?
Are they going to stick to their "We won't miss out like we did with the smartphone" statements?

Personally I don't think they really care. They can stick Office, and CoPilot and Cloud gaming onto anything they like, and their giant cloud business. They are doing just amazing without worrying about throwing billions into needing to develop hardware.
They can run and make money on others hardware.

Do you think they will re-visit AR/VR hardware at some point in time, or do you feel they are happy to just sit back, rake in the money and let others Apple/Meta etc struggle with the actual equipment?

As others have said, they already have it, but aimed at businesses vs. Apple aimed at consumers.

 

[Bodhitree]

I think Microsoft has abandoned the VR/AR space, saying there isn’t enough of a market, and is focussing on being first with a compelling AI story for search, development, office and operating systems. I think it’s smart.

By the way did you see the article on The Verge about Disney’s investment in Epic, their partnership and how Fortnite may become the Metaverse?

Fortnite is winning the metaverse

Epic never met a verse it didn’t like.

www.theverge.com

 

[falainber]

MSFT capitalization is $200B higher than that of AAPL. You obviously don't need to worry about them. They will be making way more profits on Xbox than Apple on VP.

 

[GMShadow]

HoloLens is dead inside Microsoft - the next major Windows 11 update will also remove the MR features as well.

And per some discussion this week a fair amount of the Vision Pro team came from Microsoft, as they recognized that Nadella is a visionless hack who doesn’t support anything that isn’t immediately profitable from enterprise customers.

 

[Abazigal]

I think Microsoft has abandoned the VR/AR space, saying there isn’t enough of a market, and is focussing on being first with a compelling AI story for search, development, office and operating systems. I think it’s smart.

By the way did you see the article on The Verge about Disney’s investment in Epic, their partnership and how Fortnite may become the Metaverse?

Fortnite is winning the metaverse

Epic never met a verse it didn’t like.

www.theverge.com

Report: Sam Altman seeking trillions for AI chip fabrication from UAE, others

WSJ: Audacious $5-$7 trillion investment would aim to expand global AI chip supply.

arstechnica.com

Something tells me that AI is going to be the next bubble to burst. This is another potential WeWork in the making.

 

[KPOM]

The fact that Microsoft brought native 365
apps on Day 1 leads me to believe they think the Vision Pro is a viable long term platform.