HoloLens has sold just "thousands" so far, but "that's fine - it's all we need" insists Microsoft

All part of the roadmap?

Microsoft's HoloLens - which became available for pre-order six months ago in the US and in November 2016 for UK and EU developers - has currently only tempted developers in the "thousands", rather than hundreds of thousands.

But according to Roger Walkden, Microsoft's HoloLens commercial lead for EMEA - who was speaking to Computing a London's BETT show this morning, "that's fine - that's all we need."

The visor-based AR [augmented reality] hardware - which Microsoft is now branding "mixed reality" by drawing differentiation between the fixed UI of AR devices versus the 'integrated' nature of the HoloLens 3D "hologram" images - is on a roadmap, but Walkden was deliberately vague about the development or wider enterprise future plans for the device.

"There's a roadmap. I can't tell you anything about it, though. [Microsoft] keep that kind of information way clear of me so that I don't accidentally tell you anything," Walkden quipped.

But on how current unit sales reflect Micrsoft's intentions, Walkden was clear:

"We're not trying to sell hundreds of thousands or millions or anything, it's expensive, and it's not in huge numbers. So we're happy with the level of sales that we've got - I can't tell you anything about the numbers, but it's in thousands, not hundreds of thousands, and that's fine. That's all we need."

Computing asked if part of the plan was to wait until the materials and production processes that comprise HoloLens will have naturally reduced in cost as a matter of time, and Moore's Law?

"Sure," said Walkden. "And you're starting to see that with VR headsets already, so you probably noticed we released a whole bunch of OEM headsets for VR recently, and those are around that mark, and so I don't know how far into the VR lifecycle we are - maybe two or three years from the very start of VR - so it does take years to get to that kind of position."

While Walkden's maths is interesting - HoloLens itself being announced around two years ago itself - it's perhaps some indiction of the company's plans for cheaper HoloLens iterations.

"But just remember this is version one, and there will be future versions," confirmed Walkden.

"But I have no news for you on when those will be. But the roadmap does exist, and we now that at this point this is the only device we've got, and the only one we need in order to get people started on their journey."