Microsoft

Microsoft
Information
Type	Public company
Industry	Software, Consumer electronics, Cloud computing
Founded	April 4, 1975
Founder	Bill Gates, Paul Allen
Headquarters	Redmond, Washington, United States
Notable Personnel	Satya Nadella (Chairman and CEO), Alex Kipman (former HoloLens lead)
Products	Windows, Microsoft HoloLens, Microsoft Kinect, Microsoft Mesh, Azure
Website	https://www.microsoft.com

Microsoft is an American technology company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. It was founded on April 4, 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, and is best known for the Windows operating system, the Office productivity suite, the Xbox game consoles, and the Azure cloud platform.

In virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), Microsoft is associated with the HoloLens optical see-through mixed reality headset, the Windows Mixed Reality platform for PC VR headsets built by hardware partners, the Kinect depth-sensing camera, and a set of cloud and collaboration services for spatial computing. Microsoft groups these efforts under the term Mixed Reality, which it uses for the spectrum between fully physical and fully virtual environments. By the mid-2020s Microsoft had wound down most of its consumer-facing XR hardware and platforms: production of the HoloLens 2 ended in 2024, and Windows Mixed Reality was removed from Windows 11 the same year.

HoloLens

HoloLens is a self-contained, head-worn mixed reality computer that overlays three-dimensional imagery on the wearer's view of the real world through transparent waveguide optics, so the digital content appears anchored in physical space. Microsoft announced the first Microsoft HoloLens on January 21, 2015 and shipped a Development Edition in the first quarter of 2016 for 3,000 US dollars, positioning it as a developer and enterprise device rather than a consumer product. The headset ran a version of Windows 10 called Windows Holographic, used inside-out tracking with onboard cameras, and supported hand gestures, gaze, and voice as input.

Microsoft unveiled the HoloLens 2 at Mobile World Congress on February 24, 2019 and released it on November 7, 2019 at a price of 3,500 US dollars. Compared with the first model it expanded the diagonal field of view from about 34 degrees to about 52 degrees (Microsoft described the total field of view area as more than doubling), used two laser-based displays at about 47 pixels per degree, ran on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 platform, and added articulated hand tracking and iris-based sign-in. The product was marketed mainly to enterprise and industrial customers for tasks such as remote assistance, training, and field service.

In October 2024 Microsoft confirmed that it had ended production of the HoloLens 2 and that no successor had been announced. The company said it would continue to issue critical security and software fixes for the device until the end of 2027. A separate ruggedized variant developed for the United States Army, the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), continued on a different path. On February 11, 2025 Microsoft and the defense firm Anduril Industries announced that, subject to government approval, Anduril would take over production and future hardware and software development for IVAS, while Microsoft Azure would remain Anduril's preferred cloud provider for the program. Reporting placed the contract's potential value at up to 22 billion US dollars for roughly 120,000 headsets, and the Army approved the transfer of the contract to Anduril in April 2025.

Windows Mixed Reality

Windows Mixed Reality (WMR) was a VR platform built into Windows 10 and Windows 11 that let third-party manufacturers build PC-tethered headsets using a common Microsoft runtime and inside-out tracking, removing the need for external base stations. The first WMR headsets arrived in 2017 from partners including Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung; HP's Reverb G2, released in 2020, was a later high-resolution model. WMR headsets could run native Microsoft mixed reality apps and, through the Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR bridge, play SteamVR titles, and the platform also exposed an OpenXR runtime.

Microsoft announced in December 2023 that Windows Mixed Reality, including the Mixed Reality Portal and the SteamVR bridge, was deprecated and would be removed in Windows 11 version 24H2. That update shipped on October 1, 2024 and dropped the platform's runtime, which left existing WMR headsets unable to function on the updated operating system, including in SteamVR. Microsoft said users who stayed on Windows 11 version 23H2 could continue using WMR headsets with SteamVR content through November 2026, after which the platform would receive no further updates or support.

The Windows MR partner headsets are documented separately on this wiki.

Manufacturer	Example headset
Acer	Acer Windows Mixed Reality Headset
ASUS	ASUS Windows Mixed Reality
Dell	Dell Visor
HP	HP Windows Mixed Reality Headset / Reverb G2
Lenovo	Lenovo Explorer
Samsung	HMD Odyssey

Kinect

Kinect is a depth-sensing camera that Microsoft released on November 4, 2010 as a controller-free input device for the Xbox 360. It combined an RGB camera, an infrared depth sensor, and a microphone array to capture full-body motion, recognize gestures, and respond to voice. The first-generation depth sensor used structured light, projecting a pattern of infrared dots and inferring depth from how the pattern deformed across the scene.

Although Kinect was sold as a gaming accessory, its low cost made it widely used in VR and AR research for real-time 3D scanning, body tracking, and scene reconstruction. The 2011 Microsoft Research project KinectFusion showed that a moving Kinect could build a detailed 3D model of an indoor space in real time and use it for geometry-aware augmented reality and physics-based interaction, work that fed into Microsoft's later depth-sensing and spatial-mapping hardware. Microsoft later offered the technology to developers as the Azure Kinect DK depth camera before retiring that product line.

Spatial software and services

Beyond hardware, Microsoft built cloud and collaboration software for spatial computing. Microsoft Mesh is a platform for shared 3D and avatar-based meetings; immersive spaces powered by Mesh became generally available in Microsoft Teams in January 2024 and could be joined on a Windows PC or a Meta Quest headset. Microsoft retired the standalone immersive space (3D) view and the Mesh apps for PC and Quest on December 1, 2025, replacing them with immersive events in Teams.

Microsoft also ran a set of Azure mixed reality services for anchoring digital content to real-world locations and objects. Azure Spatial Anchors, which let multiple devices place and recall holograms at the same physical spot, was retired on November 20, 2024, and the related Azure Object Anchors service was retired in 2024 as well. Microsoft acquired the social VR platform AltspaceVR in 2017 and shut it down on March 10, 2023, directing users toward Mesh.

In gaming, Microsoft Flight Simulator (the 2020 release) added VR support that works through OpenXR, so it can run on headsets from Meta, Valve, and HTC as well as on the Windows Mixed Reality headsets, with the HP Reverb G2 promoted as a recommended device at the time.