Microsoft’s investment in HoloLens over the years is looking like it could pay off in the era of the metaverse. By boarding augmented reality early, Microsoft is in a good position to innovate. And that is what the company is doing with HoloLens 2 and new immersive collaboration tools for the metaverse.
In a new blog post, the HoloLens 2 team discusses how its solutions have helped customer scale their collaboration solutions. For its latest updates, Microsoft is leveraging the combined power of Dynamics 365 Mixed Reality Apps with the Power Platform, Microsoft Teams, Azure, and OneDrive.
All these solutions working together provide productivity gains and collaboration tools that are powered by Microsoft cloud.
“No matter where they are, HoloLens 2 users can summon an array of holographic windows with a Teams call or chat, a Power BI dashboard, a Word document, a PDF or video, their OneDrive folder, or their calendar and operate in an immersive, 3D experience.”
“We’re truly delivering Windows in mixed reality,” says Alysa Taylor, Microsoft corporate vice president for Azure and Industry.
Productivity and Collaboration
Toyota is one customer already benefiting from Microsoft’s collaboration and productivity solutions on HoloLens 2. Even though the automotive giant works to strict instructions, there is still room for creativity within its chain.
David Kleiner, head of the Toyota Motor North America Applied Technology Research Lab, says even the simplest of processes can become artful.
“The killer metric for Toyota is speed,” Kleiner says. “The faster we can train people and solve problems, the faster we can get a product to market. That’s why we want to overcome location, we want to overcome time, and we want people to move faster and share knowledge. HoloLens has enabled us to do all that.”
Taylor adds that Microsoft has used feedback from customers to ensure frontline solutions are actually helpful.
“Frontline workers form the backbone of many of the world’s largest industries, yet they’ve been largely underserved by technology,” Taylor says. “So much knowledge and information is in the cloud, but how does that deskless worker in the field or on the factory floor access that digital world?”
Dynamics Mixed Reality apps use cloud services to offer the solutions customers need in the digital workplace, including the metaverse.
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