Report: Microsoft Expects Negative Feedback About Military HoloLens
- Laurent Giret
- Mar 17, 2022
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Microsoft’s contract with the Pentagon to build a HoloLens-based mixed reality headset for the US military is not going as well as expected, according to a new report from Business Insider. While real-world testing is expected to kick off in two months, Microsoft is reportedly getting prepared to receive negative feedback from its client during an upcoming hands-on event next week.
In a leaked email obtained by Business Insider, a Microsoft employee told the company’s military contract team to get ready to hear some negative feedback during this final “soldier touchpoint” event before operational tests begin in May. “We (Microsoft) are going into the event expecting negative feedback from the customer. We expect soldier sentiment to continue to be negative as reliability improvements have been minimal from previous events,” the Microsoft employee wrote.
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According to the email, Microsoft is concerned about the soldiers’ reaction to the headset’s sub-par low-light and thermal imaging performance. “Sounds like the Army is coming in with low expectations to which might be advantageous as the expectations/delivery delta might not be big,” the leaked Microsoft email also says.
Frank X. Shaw, CVP of Communications at Microsoft told Business Insider that the upcoming soldier testing event is “part of an ongoing process to engage directly with the soldiers to further improve and enhance the device.” Still, the timing for the event isn’t ideal as the US Congress recently withheld $349 million in procurement funding for Microsoft’s AR goggles in its fiscal 2022 defense package.
With only $405 million left on the table, Microsoft is believed to not be able to recover its costs, according to a person familiar with the contract. “Internally, some close to the project fear the Army will simply walk away from the contract,” Business Insider reported. However, Microsoft’s Frank Shaw dismissed these concerns. “The funds that Congress has allocated enables us to continue to invest in the program, iterate on the device, and deliver on the Army’s initial order,” the exec said.
Microsoft’s contract to build 120,000 custom HoloLens headsets for the U.S. Army is worth up to $21.88 billion over ten years, which is pretty massive. However, there seems to be some uncertainty within Microsoft regarding the future of the platform, with several employees leaving to competitors including Meta/Facebook. Still, Microsoft denied a previous report from Business Insider claiming that HoloLens 3 had been scrapped in recent months.