In late May Microsoft announced that Windows 8.1 will include native support for Miracast. Today at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston, Microsoft’s Jensen Harris, director of program management, Windows user experience, gave a demo of the wireless technology that lets you stream HD video and audio over Wi-Fi to other Miracast-enabled devices – smartphones, tablets, laptops, TVs, and even videoconferencing setups in company conference rooms.
In the demo, what Harris created on a Surface Pro was mirrored, or screencasted, onto a TV, PC, and a smartphone. It was an impressive presentation, and Microsoft’s partners responded with approving applause. So will Miracast turn out to be Microsoft’s answer to Apple’s AirPlay technology? It’s hard to say, but as SWMI Consulting Group Partner and Microsoft ambassador Mitch Garvis has said of Windows 8, “When Microsoft gets down to business, never bet against Microsoft.”
Miracast is an open technology standard supported by the Wi-Fi Alliance that was developed by a group of electronics and mobile OEMs. And, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance, “Products bearing the Miracast brand interoperate across vendors.” In other words, the technology is vendor agnostic, and there’s a lot of value in that. After all, how many small businesses in your client list have standardized on one vendor or platform?
Expect the number of devices that support Miracast to gain momentum throughout 2013; by 2016, analyst firm HMS iSuppli expects more than 1.5 billion (yes, that’s billion with a B) devices to be Miracast enabled.
