Microsoft: HoloLens Is Not Dead

Contrary to what you may have read earlier this week, Microsoft's HoloLens is not dead. In fact, "HoloLens is doing great," says Microsoft's mixed reality head, Alex Kipman. The Verge reports: Business Insider reported on Wednesday that Microsoft has scrapped plans for HoloLens 3 in recent months and that it could be "the end of the road" for the headset. Microsoft has reportedly agreed to partner with Samsung on a new mixed reality device, a move that has apparently "inflamed divisions" that exist in Microsoft's mixed reality teams. [...] Anonymous Microsoft employees speaking to Business Insider claim there is confusion and uncertainty over the future of HoloLens inside the division that is run by Alex Kipman, technical fellow at Microsoft.

"Don't believe what you read on the internet," claims Kipman in a reply to a tweet referencing the report. "HoloLens is doing great and if you search said internet they also said we had cancelled HoloLens 2... which last I checked we shipped with success." [...] Meta, formerly Facebook, is aggressively pursuing the dream of a metaverse, and it's something Microsoft wants to build, too. "We feel very well positioned to be able to catch what I think is essentially the next wave of the internet," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella about the metaverse last month. "I think the next wave of the internet will be a more open world where people can build their own metaverse worlds, whether they're organizations, game developers, or anyone else."

It...

[rswillergun]

...is just resting.

Re:

[PPH]

It doesn't want to go on the cart.

Mark Twain

[esperto]

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

Thanks Microsoft, but ...

[fahrbot-bot]

Microsoft: HoloLens Is Not Dead

I'll wait to hear from Netcraft or Dr. McCoy. :-)

Tune in Next Week!

[Thelasko]

Will the next wave of the internet be the metaverse?
Will it be web3?
Will it be both web3 and metaverse?
Will HoloLens 3 mine Bitcoin?
Will Goku defeat Piccolo Jr.?
Tune in next week and find out!

Microsoft does not walk away from money.

[mmell]

They saw the end coming for IE and no upside to keep it around, so they (finally) drove a stake through its heart.

They saw the end coming for Exchange and found a way to keep it making money. As a product, Exchange server never became the internet standard, but it's alive and well.

They may have seen the end coming for VR. It turns out, nobody in their right mind wants to look like the Lawnmower Man. They went straight for the AR angle and it didn't turn out to be a gold mine right off the bat - but if Meta thinks there's money here, Microsoft will probably be more than willing to see the bet. They'll never go all-in, but at some point they might raise to try to buy Meta's pot - or they might fold, but I doubt it.

Re:

[Thelasko]

Also, Microsoft sees it self as a supplier for big business. Unlike Google, they understand that corporations expect their suppliers to support their products for quite a while. HoloLens is utilized by some very large corporations, and Microsoft doesn't want to scare them with rumors of abandonment.

Re: Microsoft does not walk away from money.

[spinitch]

Business stuck on Win OS office etc gravitate to HoloLens since Easier to rationalize procurement and support. My employer started with demos training now moving into service. Customers also using HoloLens for similar purposes. Pricey whee we a mobile phone can do much of the basics but not quite as extensive. MS can afford a steady development so expect it will trod along as a niche and slowly grow. Cheaper than sending out field services technicians for routine diagnostic procedures, more flexible schedu

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF are you babbling about. Hololens is a very independent product that costs 10's of thousands per headset (when you include the dev costs). being stuck on Win OS has no fucking influence on it. In fact where I work we bought it for design work and prior to that we would have only had a handful of windoze machines, mostly for HR and admin type work. You obviously don't have a fucking clue what hololens is if you are comparing it to a mobile phone.

Microsoft used to understand

[martynhare]

What you said was true but these days they abandon products constantly.

A clear example of this is Office 365 support for Remote Desktop Services, which is going bye bye with the EOL of Server 2016 and is effectively abandoning support midway through the Server 2019 cycle. If you want an equivalent going forward, you will need to use Azure as Microsoft refuses to licence the appropriately supported product (Windows 10 Enterprise Multi-User) outside of Azure.

Then there is the .NET fiasco. Apparently 3

Re:

[s4080326]

AR is still hardware limited the Hololen's, like the original table Surface, is a brilliant product that doesn't really justify their price tag yet. What these product's do though is keep they relevant expertise developing within the organization so that when hardware cost's come down Microsoft is ready to take advantage. Microsoft has managed to capture the high-end business market so when the hardware is there they will be able to push a suboptimal version down and have middling success or maybe they will

"Don't believe what you read on the internet"

[S_Stout]

Said Kipman, on the internet.

Re:

[r2kordmaa]

Hololens is not a gaming device, I guess you could theoretically run some sort of pokemon thingy or some other smartphone game on it, but that's about it. An AR device like that is fundamentally not very suitable for gaming, it's not a set of VR goggles. And of course, the current cost is prohibitive for consumer, so there is that.

Hololens is aiming for something completely different, it's aiming to be a productivity tool of a sorts. For businesses, military etc. Is it actually worth it, or going to be? H

Eh its a long term project they have a side bet on

[WarlockD]

Argument reality is out there in the industrial world but its in the form of expensive glasses used mainly for pop up instructions in manufacturing. All the displays out there are just glorified heads up displays and the Kickstarter "3d" ones are all either scams or single ply devices that the companies pump and dump (I know, I got like 3 of them, one of witch was built with hot glue, but to be fair they all "worked") Microsoft is the only one out there doing some real money on it. Their API is fairly go