Microsoft has found a very lucrative new client; the U.S. Army.
On Wednesday, Microsoft got the news that the Army awarded them the contract to build over 120,000 augmented reality headsets.
The cost of the deal was $21.88 billion over 10 years, and Wall Street rewarded Microsoft stock as it climbed 1.7% by the end of the day.
The best part about this deal is it should keep our soldiers safer and more productive.
The HoloLens allows people to see holograms which are overlaid over their actual environments. It’s going to give soldiers a better picture of what they are dealing with and what kind of threats are in front of them. It will help reveal enemies lurking in the dark. IT could also show the aim for a weapon.
They are able to interact by using hand and voice gestures.
Alex Kipman is the person for Microsoft who introduced the HoloLens six years ago. A CNBC story shared part of a blog post Kipman published.
“The program delivers enhanced situational awareness, enabling information sharing and decision-making in a variety of scenarios.”
This is the third big deal Microsoft has closed with the Pentagon. In 2018 they received a $480 million contract to provide prototypes of the Integrated Visual Augmented System.
Microsoft also beat out Amazon in 2019 to provide cloud services to the Department of Defense.
There were some Microsoft employees not happy with that cloud deal, and they are trying to get their company to cancel the multi-billion dollar HoloLens deal too. “We did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used,” an employee said in an open letter.
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