Microsoft has welcomed six new European partners into its HoloLens Agency Readiness Partner Program, allowing more companies than ever to take advantage of the incredible mixed reality technology the headset offers.
The new partners join the ranks of 10 existing agency partners based in the US and Canada, and they will focus on creating innovative mixed reality solutions using HoloLens for European companies that want to build and deploy mixed reality applications.
The full list of European partners is as follows:
• Black Marble (U.K.)
• Fundamental VR (U.K.)
• Rewind (U.K.)
• HoloForge (France)
• Immersion (France)
• Zühlke (Germany)
All partners have gone through extensive hands-on training directly with Microsoft’s HoloLens team, and have already delivered high quality mixed reality applications for a number of global companies, transforming how people work with 3D data, bringing new products and information to life, creating new opportunities for business growth, and much more.
A closer look at the new partners:
Black Marble
Black Marble is a Microsoft Gold Partner that provides custom development and consultancy services across the Microsoft platform.
The company focuses on cloud-connected next-generation user experiences, from wearables to holograms, and has worked with police forces to produce holographic, virtual, mobile command and control centres, and to capture crime scenes so officers can revisit them using HoloLens.
They have also worked on an innovative tour experience applications targeted at small businesses who want to showcase their company, and large exhibitions and museums.
Fundamental VR
Fundamental VR, a UK-based partner, has a specific focus on the healthcare sector, and is developing simulations for pharmaceutical companies, equipment and device manufacturers, medical colleges and hospitals.
A Fundamental VR spokesperson commenting on the European expansion said: “We are delighted to have been selected as a HoloLens partner by Microsoft. The holographic platform offers exciting new opportunities in medical knowledge transfer that come at a time when the medical world needs to radically enhance the speed, accuracy and efficiency of that knowledge transfer.”
HoloForge
France-based HoloForge has five years of experience working with HoloLens, bringing concrete and innovative answers to companies, tailoring holographic solutions for their specific needs.
Sebastian Wloch, CEO of HoloForge believes that “HoloLens will be part of all organisations soon – it’s an immediate pay-back in time saved, ensuring that people work more productively. HoloLens’s scope has already proven many times that we can directly influence productivity, training, maintenance, co-working, envisioning and even increase the attractiveness of job opportunities”.
The company’s team of engineers, developers, designers and 3D artists are pooling together their experience and skills to create mixed reality solutions for a wide variety industries, including health, aeronautic, entertainment, real estate, and more.
Immersion
France-based partner Immersion – a pioneer in virtual and mixed reality since 1994 – works with customers to utilize HoloLens in numerous ways, including sales and maintenance support, immersive configurators, and remote expertise, along with many other industrial use cases which it defines with its customers.
“With Microsoft HoloLens, you can visualize a digital mock-up in a real environment, without being cut off from others, as you are still able to see them through the headset. This falls completely in line with our philosophy of the uses of virtual, augmented and mixed reality, where collaboration takes a prominent place – Christophe Chartier, CEO and co-founder, Immersion.
“Mixed reality offers the omnipresence of information, which is accessible everywhere and all the time. This allows a wide dissemination of information and facilitates its understanding. Coupled with Shariiing – our collaborative solution – mixed reality will provide remote expertise and allow multidisciplinary teams to make better and faster decisions”.
Rewind
Rewind is a creative agency and digital production studio based in London. They specialize in virtual reality and the creative production behind experiential events.
For HoloLens, they have expanded their offerings to include mixed reality to demonstrate the future of live sports viewing. The company has worked with Red Bull Air Race to create an experience which gives fans a better understanding of the complex rules and regulations of the sport and get closer to the action of the exhilarating competition.”
Sol Rogers, CEO and Founder of Rewind states that “We are incredibly proud to be one of three UK companies that made it through the program. We’re looking forward to innovating in the MR space and taking Flight Deck to the next level.
The ambition is for Flight Deck to be experienced across the whole Red Bull Air Race 2017 season – on the ground at races and in the homes of fans. Telemetry data from the position of planes will be used to watch head-to-head battles in the sky in real-time. It’s the future of live sport and we’re thrilled to be part of it.”
Zühlke
Dennis Ahrens, Business Solutions Manager, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality at German-based Zühlke – a partner with more than 800 in-house experts – states that “Microsoft HoloLens increases time and cost efficiency, enabling the user to work handsfree and independent from other devices”.
Use cases for Zühlke’s clients include workforce management (as an assistant for work steps, documentation and quality control), holographic/virtual product development, and sales configuration and planning.
“Mixed reality has an opportunity to increase the efficiency in business processes. In future, it might be possible that mixed reality will have a deep impact on a lot working processes. Currently, it is more a B2B and B2E solution, but in future it might be possible that mixed reality will be part of common B2C shopping”.
For more information on the expansion of Microsoft HoloLens Agency Readiness Partners in Europe, please visit the official Windows Blog post.
