Alibaba has already invested heavily in AR, with a view to becoming the AR e-commerce leader in China (where it doesn’t have Tencent’s advantages as a mobile AR software platform). Given Jack Ma’s penchant for bold moves in new markets, he might consider going from Magic Leap’s lead investor to its owner (assuming it delivers on its promise). Amazon and eBay have similar AR e-commerce software opportunities outside China to sell things to folks in totally new ways hong kong day tour.

Microsoft currently has no play for mobile AR software or mobile AR hardware, and it isn’t clear that it will enter either market. Satya Nadella focused HoloLens on the enterprise, and even Windows 10 VR is being left to PC hardware partners without Xbox One X support this year. Microsoft’s enterprise focused strategy for AR (which, again, they call mixed reality) means HoloLens is their only horse in the race. When a future HoloLens is ready for consumers, Microsoft might have to try to switch mobile AR and tethered smartglasses developers and users away from Apple. That sort of thing was last done successfully by a young man called Bill Gates in 1981 Where to shop in Hong Kong.

Snap was the mobile AR software market before Pokémon GO, Facebook and Apple came along. But with a closed platform and 300 million monthly active users, it’s much smaller than any one of Facebook’s big three. So it has a massive fight on its hands to maintain its momentum as a mobile AR software leader. Snap Spectacles were a brilliant pre-IPO marketing wheeze, and a great Trojan horse to gather consumer data. But if Evan Spiegel decides to develop Spectacles into full-blown mobile tethered AR, his understanding of what his users want would need to be matched by hardware and ecosystem scaling beyond anything he’s done before. Doing new things seems to be his strength, so watch this space.

Like Microsoft, startups Magic Leap, Meta, Avegant, ODG, Vuzix and others (including corporates like Epson) are going straight to tethered smartglasses or standalone smartglasses and bypassing mobile AR entirely. This sees them all focused on enterprise customers while they innovate to solve AR’s five consumer challenges. But when they finally reach the promised land, they’ll have a common set of enemies (apart from each other) waiting for them.

Apple, Facebook and other major AR developer ecosystems might already be monetizing at scale at that stage. This could give smartglasses pure-plays the challenge of switching developers and users across from standard platforms with billions of users and network effects to proprietary platforms with a few million users and revolutionary technology. That sort of thing was last done successfully by a man in his 50s called Steve Jobs in 2007 IP Networking Solutions.