Meeting in the Metaverse in 2022 with Mesh for Teams, Cisco Hologram
Will avatars and holograms have a place in your customers meetings?
December 28, 2021
![Virtual Reality metaverse Virtual Reality metaverse](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/blt75bc97112e15e14b/652439cc7bdf0319c55daccf/Virtual-Reality-Metaverse.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Shutterstock
Meta announced that it sees the metaverse as the successor to the mobile internet. The metaverse, according to Meta, is a “set of interconnected digital spaces that lets you do things you can’t do in the physical world. Importantly, it’ll be characterized by social presence, the feeling that you’re right there with another person, no matter where in the world you happen to be. The metaverse is still a ways off, but parts of it are already here — and even more are on the horizon.”
Microsoft last month said it plans to make Teams the “gateway” to metaverses with its introduction of Mesh for Teams. The new feature, set to appear during the first half of 2022, will introduce avatars and holograms to meetings, aiming to make remote attendees and people in the office more immersive. Introduced at the Microsoft Ignite conference, chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said the following about Mesh for Teams in his keynote address:
“When we talk about the metaverse, we’re describing both a new platform and a new application type, similar to how we talked about the web and websites in the early ’90s. In a sense, the metaverse enables us to embed computing into the real world, and to embed the real world into computing, bringing real presence to any digital space.”
Nadella described Mesh for Microsoft Teams as a breakthrough.
“I can’t overstate how much of a breakthrough this is,” he said. “For years, we’ve talked about creating this digital representation of the world. But now we actually have the opportunity to go into that world and participate in it.”
Cisco previewed its Webex Hologram at its WebexOne event in late October. Available to a limited number of customer pilots, Cisco said it will appeal to designers, engineers, scientists and medical professionals, and others who could provide simulations using holograms.
Jeetu Patel, EVP and GM of Cisco’s security and collaboration business units, described Webex Hologram as “one of the most breakthrough events you will see not just at this event but in general. This is no longer a research project. We believe that this will actually make its way into practical use in faster time that you might have thought about.”
One key technology that will pave the way for avatars is the new Nvidia Omniverse Enterprise. Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang last month said Omniverse is an AI-based platform designed to connect physical and digital worlds with 3-D digital twins.
“Omniverse has real, immediate applications,” Huang told investors last month, a week after demonstrating Omniverse Enterprise at its GTC event. Omniverse is available in a variety of subscription options. It provides virtual reality environments that allow global 3-D design teams to collaborate in real-time using different vendors’ software.
As Microsoft’s largest partner, Accenture was one of the first to deploy Teams to hundreds of thousands of employees. The global systems integrator also now has early access to Mesh for Teams. Accenture has used it to create a virtual campus, virtual meeting rooms and virtual reality-based collaborative experiences. Ellyn Shook, Accenture’s chief leadership and HR officer, discussed how the company is using Mesh for employee onboarding during the Microsoft Ignite keynote.
“It’s so important to bring the human connection into our digital world. We’re using this technology for meetings and learning, team get-togethers, and it’s helped us really transform our new joiner experience.”
While even Meta and Microsoft say the metaverse is in its infancy, others think that might be an understatement. Dell Technologies global CTI John Roese, who once led R&D for metaverse-type efforts, recently told Business Insider that Facebook “has wildly overhyped what is actually real.”
Roese emphasized that while the metaverse is inevitable that no one company can build it alone.
“It’s a trend in which immersive digital experiences have way more value when they’re connected and when you can move between them and you can combine them.”
If Zoom plans to bring its customers to the metaverse in 2022, founder and CEO Eric Yuan is keeping it close to the vest. In a recent interview with Yahoo news, Yuan said he believes metaverse is many years away.
“We truly believe video communication like Zoom can deliver a better experience than face-to-face meetings in the future,” Yuan said. “We are not there yet, but we are going to get us there in the next five to 10 years.”
If Zoom plans to bring its customers to the metaverse in 2022, founder and CEO Eric Yuan is keeping it close to the vest. In a recent interview with Yahoo news, Yuan said he believes metaverse is many years away.
“We truly believe video communication like Zoom can deliver a better experience than face-to-face meetings in the future,” Yuan said. “We are not there yet, but we are going to get us there in the next five to 10 years.”
Collaboration will tiptoe into the “metaverse” in 2022 when Microsoft rolls out Mesh for Teams. A handful of others such as Cisco will do the same with Webex Hologram.
The metaverse, online 3-D simulated environments with avatars and holograms, is hardly a new concept. But it is typically in the purview of gamers and futurists. While Microsoft and Cisco plan to make soft entrees, others, such as Zoom, for now aren’t signaling any major moves.
Recently, the metaverse has become the next big thing in consumer and business technology. Firing the first salvo in October was Facebook, which prominently changed the name of its holding company to Meta. Besides the name change, Meta used the occasion to flesh out its metaverse vision, which it had already begun sharing. The company started telegraphing its metaverse efforts in July.
Facebook’s metaverse covers a broad set of activities, ranging from bringing virtual reality to social media, messaging, fitness and gaming. But it also has a work component called Horizon Workrooms, which it launched into beta in August. Facebook designed Horizon Workrooms, VR workspaces, to let groups collaborate using Oculus Quest 2 3-D headsets.
How quickly organizations embrace bringing virtual meetings to a metaverse remains to be seen. When the pandemic began two years ago, using Zoom, Teams and others was a natural move. Adopting them enabled meetings and communications right away.
Also to be determined is how most mainstream workgroups will benefit by gathering as 3-D avatars in simulated VR environments. For sure, there are many scenarios where has tremendous potential, such as engineering, product development, training and health care.
Bill Gates Bullish on the Metaverse
Microsoft founder Bill Gates is among those who are bullish about the potential of the metaverse. In his recently posted year-in-review article, Gates predicted that it would have major implications for the future of work.
Gates believes that within the next two or three years, most virtual meetings will move from “Hollywood Squares” styled 2-D camera image grids to the metaverse.
“The idea is that you will eventually use your avatar to meet with people in a virtual space that replicates the feeling of being in an actual room with them,” Gates wrote.
Microsoft’s planned rollout of Mesh for Teams uses a webcam to animate avatars in existing 2-D environments, Gates noted. But he described this as an interim solution to the metaverse of two or three years from now. One limitation he noted is that there is a limited population of those who have 3-D headsets. It was recently reported that Meta has only shipped 10 million Oculus Quest 2 headsets.
Veteran industry analyst Tom Nolle of CIMI Corp. recently opined that he sees merit to Microsoft’s Mesh for Teams vision. But Nolle also gave cause for skepticism pertaining to the pace it will materialize, noting that there are various barriers. For example, he noted that synchronizing the movement of people with their avatars is hampered today by latency.
CMI Corp.’s Tom Nolle
A more incremental introduction could start with holograms, and over time, avatars “as we improve our ability to sync the avatars to our physical movements and expressions,” Nolle noted. “Not only is Microsoft’s approach more logical from a business collaboration perspective, but it’s also much easier to implement because it doesn’t require real-time synchronization of human and avatar behavior.”
Nolle added that it doesn’t even require humans to be represented by avatars.
“You could even shift the generation of ‘digital product’ avatars from AR goggles to laser holograms in a meeting room, offering a hybrid work model.”
In the slideshow above, see the various metaverse developments of the past year.
Want to contact the author directly about this story? Have ideas for a follow-up article? Email Jeffrey Schwartz or connect with him on LinkedIn. |
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like