[MUSIC]
>> Yes, indeed the hype is
real and here to share what we can
expect as well as give
some helpful tips to leveraging Microsoft Mesh,
please welcome Microsoft's Director
of Product for HoloLens,
Computer Vision Services, and of course,
Microsoft Mesh, Simon Skaria.
Simon, how are you? Thanks for joining us.
>> Very well, Olivier. This is
the great morning to be joining in
this excellent community for those
who are based in the US and
for those who are all over the world,
we wish you a great afternoon
and great evening wherever you are.
>> Fantastic. Simon, I just actually
named your title and the technology that you cover,
but tell me more about yourself,
what your team is doing
and then we'll talk about Microsoft Mesh.
>> It's much easier to talk about what my team is doing.
We just started this journey of
Mixed Reality just following
the linearity of Microsoft Kinect.
It was a great revolution
in input devices that completely
changed the paradigm of Xbox and
that heritage and that legacy
continue forward into Mixed Reality.
Our team is all about building experiences
that blends the physical and the digital world.
I am humbled to be part of
that small team that actually
pushes the technology forward,
giving computers that great sense of vision, and
giving people experiences that are
unlocked from our screens into those that are
reliant on spaces and so that you actually have that
human capability to naturally
visualize information wherever they are.
>> Because we like to empower people and
developer in our case for Microsoft Build these days,
there's something called Microsoft Mesh
that your team has been working on.
For those who have not had a chance yet to
dive into the documentation and information around it,
can you tell us at a high level,
what is Microsoft Mesh about?
>> Microsoft Mesh for end-users
is a platform that delivers three value propositions.
It delivers through presence
that gives us agency to represent ourselves
from representative avatars to photorealistic holoportation
in a world where we are fundamentally
switching to a hybrid base of work and life,
as Satya mentioned in his blog and in his keynote.
The second value proposition of
Microsoft Mesh is creating together.
The ability for us to be able to participate in
the creation process regardless
of whether you are in the same space,
in a different space at
the same time or in a different time.
Transcending that space and time in
the creation process is the second value proposition.
Then third, we absolutely
want to have an inclusive experience,
whether you are in AR devices,
augmented reality devices, VR devices.
Whether you are in 2D devices, 3D devices,
devices that Microsoft make,
whether devices that's made by others.
We want to make sure that Microsoft Mesh delivers
inclusive experiences on the devices that you have,
differentiated experiences on
the highest watermark devices that we make.
Microsoft Mesh for its users is all about three things,
we want to ensure we deliver you through presence,
we give you the capability to create
together wherever you are, and
most importantly, we want you to be able to
do that with the devices that you have.
>> I love it. Since the announcement
of Microsoft Mesh there's been lots of buzz around it.
It really looked like science fiction.
I'm curious to know, what was the reception?
How did customer once they realize it was reality,
that they could actually implement
solutions that were like in
the movies, how did they react?
What use cases do they start coming up to you with?
>> Well, guys, as Satya says,
technology is all about
democratizing it so that we actually turn this
from science fiction to science fact to
something that actually blends into
everyday fabric of our life,
so that's all that technology is about.
My goal is to get to
the next interview of this kind of reveal and say,
"You say wow, it has now become
a part of our everyday fabric."
With respect to the reception,
it has been absolutely humbling.
It is by far
the most well-received product launch
that we have done to date.
Alex Kipman, our leader for
Mixed Reality introduced a number of our partners and
they are relentlessly driving
forward their experiences from Hanai World,
which is taking that experiences to
tell everyday stories in a different way.
Altspace we are with
just our own studio which has taken a very,
very interesting perspective on
enabling everyday concerts.
These days, pretty much every weekend there is
a concert up here from
ocean explorer for enabling
this experience to have the modern-day experiences,
to understand the marine life.
It's absolutely impressive.
Then on the commercial side,
Satya actually mention in his blog about hybrid world,
the end goal experience that Accenture is partnering for,
it is truly a future of how we
think new employee onboarding is going to work.
Work from enterprise ISVs to consumer metaverses,
work from everyday applications to Accenture-like ISVs,
both building it for
their internal solutions as well as for
their third party practices
is an absolutely stunning reception.
I can take this to public preview sometime soon.
>> Well, actually now you're mentioning that,
you're going to have to tell us if you have
a rough idea of when we should expect it to be available.
Because now we have people excited,
they have all these fantastic scenarios
that they want to implement it with, so when?
>> Yes, Olivier,
that's a great question and
I kind of led you over there.
First and foremost, the most important thing
to us is to make sure that it's
a KPI quality and performance-driven
release that we do.
The most important thing is to work
with the early partners that we talked
about and ensure that we iron
out the most important issues.
We ensure that we release
a high-quality public preview to you,
so that when you pick it up, it's
something that you would be super proud
to show it to your customers
and your friends and families too.
In terms of timing,
I promised you that there is no new news here,
but still my goal is to land a public preview in
the second half of calendar year 2021.
You are actually forcing me to say something.
But that is what we are working towards.
>> I'm not going to force too much on that one.
We understand that we need to have quality in there,
especially as the customers are ready to
go with their solutions.
Simon, thanks a lot for your time today.
I wish we'd have more time
to discuss even further Microsoft Mesh.
Unfortunately, we are at time.
Thanks, Simon, once again for joining us today.
>> Thank you for having me.
>> Nice. If you'd like to get started
and join our Mixed Reality Developer Program,
you can check it out at aka.ms/IWantMR.
Pretty straightforward, right?