Written by丨Noah
Recently, Meta, which has attracted much attention because of Llama 3, has begun to exert its strength again.
This time, the highlight is in the XR space.
Meta announced that it will open the Quest operating system to third-party companies, allowing them to develop their own headsets.
Imagine the equivalent of moving the Quest ecosystem from an Apple-like model where one company builds both hardware and software to an open hardware environment like Android. The Quest operating system will be renamed to "Meta Horizon OS",
Zuckerberg, who once bet heavily on the metaverse but has been repeatedly frustrated, is clearly not giving up. This time, by licensing the operating system for his Quest headset to other hardware manufacturers, Zuckerberg is working to achieve his goal: making Meta a more open platform than Apple.
He had firmly positioned Meta's Horizon OS as the Android counterpart to Apple's Vision Pro. But given that Android is more of an iPhone counterpart, an analogy that Zuckerberg might prefer is how Microsoft built the early PC market by licensing the Windows operating system.
Source: Meta's official blog
1. A new step towards the metaverse
It is understood that Meta's first partners include Lenovo and Asus.
ASUS's Republic of Gamers brand is working on a new "high-performance gaming" headset. Lenovo, which was involved in the design of the Oculus Rift S, is "developing mixed reality devices for productivity, learning, and entertainment."
At the same time, Meta also revealed that it will work with Xbox again to launch a limited-edition, gaming-focused Quest headset. Shortly before that, Microsoft partnered with Meta to bring Xbox cloud gaming to Quest.
In its official blog post, Meta describes the vision of the move: "Today, we are taking a major step towards our vision of building a more open computing platform for the metaverse. ”
"We are opening up the operating systems that power Meta Quest devices to third-party hardware manufacturers in an effort to provide more choice for consumers and build a larger ecosystem for developers. We're working with the world's leading technology companies to activate this emerging ecosystem and further streamline the development process, making it easier for developers to create apps and reach users on the platform. ”
According to Meta, Meta Horizon OS is the result of Meta's decade of sharpening its sword and building a next-generation computing platform.
"We've developed technologies such as inside-out tracking, and eye, face, hand and whole body tracking for more natural interactions and social presence. For mixed reality, we built a suite of technologies that converge the digital and physical worlds, including high-resolution perspective, scene understanding, and spatial anchors. Starting with a mobile-first foundation based on Android's open source project, this long-term investment has resulted in a complete mixed reality operating system used by millions of users. ”
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Non-real-world product renderings. Source: Meta's official blog
Developers and creators can leverage all of these technologies with Meta's custom frameworks and tools for building mixed reality experiences, and reach their communities and grow their businesses through the OS's built-in content discovery and monetization platform.
Under the theme of open platforms, Meta is also working to provide more avenues to discover alternative app stores. Meta is increasing the visibility of its experimental App Lab store, even calling on Google to bring its Google Play 2D app store to Meta Horizon OS. In order to enrich the content in the Horizon ecosystem, software developed through the App Lab will be displayed in the Horizon Store. The company is also working on a new spatial framework to enable mobile developers to create mixed reality applications.
II. The Long-Planned "Opening Up"
"You can imagine a lightweight headset that pairs with the computer on your desktop to give you the best work experience at home or on the go, or a headset focused on watching immersive entertainment such as movies and videos, with the highest resolution OLED screen on the market," Zuckerberg said in a video announcing the news. ”
Screenshot: Instagram
Crucially for Meta, Horizon OS includes the Horizon Social Layer, an open 3D world platform that combines elements of Roblox and The Sims.
That said, any hardware company today that wants to make devices with Horizon OS will help expand the reach of the Horizon social network, from which Meta ultimately plans to monetize through advertising and commercial campaigns.
In addition to the requirement for Qualcomm chips and affiliations with social networks, Meta has not revealed more commercial terms regarding the Horizon OS license.
In fact, Meta's move has been planned for a long time.
Zuckerberg said in an interview with the media in the fall of 2022: "In an open ecosystem, you basically have a broader partnership. For example, Microsoft doesn't make chips, it doesn't make personal computers, and it doesn't build an app store. These are all key elements that have developed around the ecosystem, similar to Android. And that's exactly what we're trying to build here – to create an open ecosystem for virtual reality and augmented reality next-generation computing in the broader metaverse, and that means we need to build all of these partnerships. ”
3. Conquer the territory or abolish martial arts
Regarding Meta's move to authorize third-party hardware manufacturers, some industry insiders commented on the substantive difference: "It feels more like the difference between professional and general-purpose hardware, rather than the difference between low-end and high-end." ”
For example, if you're selling VR headsets for industrial training, you probably don't want the consumer-grade hardware that Meta sells. You may need more wind and rain resistance for outdoor operation. For example, in industrial applications, you may need a display with a much higher resolution than a consumer-grade product.
This type of professional business usually has a wider moat and higher profit margins.
"While the market size is small – too small to be dismissed for a large company like Meta, they can still contribute to the healthy development of the entire ecosystem. ”
This strategy allows Meta to influence the use of AR/VR in specific professional fields without having to fully commit to it.
Take, for example, a medical device company that uses VR headsets for training. Their current options are either to use consumer-grade hardware that may not meet all their needs, or to become a full-fledged AR/VR company that takes on all the necessary R&D work. Now, this strategy offers a third way, where the core R&D is done by a third party, but it still has enough control to produce the specialized hardware.
However, there are also doubts about Meta's move.
In 1994, Apple, which was at a low point at the time, licensed Mac OS to two computer manufacturers, and in 1996, Motorola also obtained a license to produce the StarMax. However, licensing won't solve Apple's problems.
"The Biography of Steve Jobs" once recorded this history: compatible computers squeezed out the sales of Apple computers, and at that time, the profits of each Apple computer were much higher than the licensing fees of compatible machines, and the economic gains outweighed the losses.
On the other hand, even if Apple, like Microsoft, completely abandons its own hardware, because Microsoft has taken over the market, Mac OS rests on its laurels and has not had a major update for many years. In other words, Apple's abandonment of the tradition of integrating software and hardware is tantamount to abandoning its martial arts, and it is difficult to turn over. Fortunately, after the return of Joe's gang, he immediately set out to eliminate Mac compatible machines, and even spent $100 million to acquire one of the licensed manufacturers.
What about Meta? Moreover, there is an important difference between Meta at this time and Apple at that time.
"Apple's profitability is largely dependent on the profit margins of Mac hardware, and flexible clones can easily drive down prices. In contrast, Meta's Quest hardware has been sold at a loss-preserving or even loss. To reduce losses, they even increased the price of the Quest 2. While licensing third parties doesn't pose an existential threat to Quest, it's unclear whether these hardware licensees can bring something of real value to the table. ”
Reference Links:
https://www.meta.com/zh-tw/blog/quest/meta-horizon-os-open-hardware-ecosystem-asus-republic-gamers-lenovo-xbox/
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/22/24137284/meta-license-horizon-os-quest-headset-lenovo-asus
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/04/22/1718249/meta-opens-quest-os-to-third-parties-including-asus-and-lenovo
Source: 51CTO Technology Stack