Microsoft’s Mixed Up Messaging on Mixed Reality

So Microsoft is freeing the Windows Holographic shell from its HoloLens shackles and will make it available on mainstream PCs. But I’m still not sold on augmented reality, or mixed reality, or whatever they’re calling it this week. And part of the problem is Microsoft’s mixed up messaging.

HoloLens has always been a controversial topic for me, for a variety of reasons. The most obvious is that Microsoft continues to lie about the capabilities of this technology, and continues to release science fiction demonstrations that exaggerate its capabilities, most specifically by pretending that its very limited field of view (FOV) does not exist. It has done so consistently since the very first demo, up to an including a video that Microsoft literally just released yesterday. Which never once shows the actual FOV.

HoloLens is, I think, emblematic of the problems that Microsoft now faces. It is a product that would never have seen the light of day when Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer ran the company. Part of the reason is simply historical: At a time when Windows dominated the personal computing industry, half-baked “moon shots” like HoloLens would have been left to wither in a Microsoft Research lab because there was no pressing need. But part of it is cultural, too. Today’s Microsoft is all open and airy, and maybe too willing to take risks. It’s the company that boasted it would have one billion active Windows 10 devices after three years, and then proactively admitted defeat after just one year. It’s also the company that thought HoloLens was ready for the public when it oh-so-clearly is not.

It’s hard not to compare Satya Nadella’s first days as Microsoft CEO to those of Steve Jobs when he returned to Apple almost 20 years ago. At that time, Jobs toured Apple’s labs and was shown the products the firm was working on. Most of it depressed him, and he quickly axed most of Apple’s current and in-development products, including the Newton, a move that was itself controversial at the time.

But Nadella was shown HoloLens and essentially said, “ship it.” Excited the possibilities, he threw caution to the wind and fast-tracked a technology that he saw—correctly—as a differentiator. He suspected—again, correctly—that if Microsoft didn’t go all-in on what was then called augmented reality (AR)—some other company would. And then Microsoft could only fall back on the same age-old gripe: That they had invented something, never shipped it, and then seen a competitor go to market with it later. You know, like PARC in the 1970s.

The problem with differentiators is that they’re easily usurped. You can find hundreds of examples of this in the mobile world, where any good idea on one platform is quickly copied on the next. The end result is a form of platform equanimity, no good idea goes uncopied.

So I’m sure AR was a great differntiator back in 2014 or whatever. But today, Google is building it into phones—no need for that silly and expensive headgear, Microsoft—and I’m guessing you’ve all at least heard of the best AR app of all time, since it’s the biggest game of the year: Pokemon Go. Which, ironically or not, is not available on Microsoft’s devices.

Point being, Jobs’ ability to say no is an example of one form of leadership. And one might argue that Nadella’s ability to say yes—to take that risk—is another. But both men were driven by the pressures of the day and responded accordingly. It’s just that Jobs’ bet paid off. And Nadella’s never will.

It will never pay off because here, in August 2016, Microsoft still has no idea what to do with HoloLens. No idea.

So Microsoft has kept repositioning and even renaming AR: Now HoloLens is called mixed reality (MR), because virtual reality (VR) has become a hot button topic, and when you mix AR and VR you get MR! And now developers can finally get a HoloLens headset with few restrictions beyond a Mastercard-chilling $3000 price tag. And even business users can, because … Microsoft loves its business customers!

Please.

Microsoft’s approach to HoloLens basically amounts to “build it and they will come.” But as with the Windows Store, no third party developer has stepped up with the platform-defining gotta-have-it solution that transforms HoloLens into something truly desirable and useful. And here’s the real surprise: Microsoft literally has no follow-up. There’s nothing else.

Is it too early to start referring to HoloLens as “Satya’s Folly”? Probably. But spreading the underlying platform to Windows on PCs won’t help. And combining AR and VR on the upcoming Xbox One “Project Scorpio” console, as I suspect Microsoft plans to do, will reach an even more limited audience.

If MR does take off somehow, then AR will only be a piece of a much bigger puzzle that is dominated by VR, a technology that other companies, and not Microsoft, are championing. I can’t imagine that Microsoft’s original vision for HoloLens was that it would be a bit player in a broader technology shift that it does not control or really even participate in. But then I can’t imagine that there was ever any vision for HoloLens that was more sophisticated than “hey, this is pretty cool.” And that, ultimately, is the problem. Being pretty cool isn’t good enough.