Augmenting the user numbers

An update from Microsoft is floating in: they now made the move to make the Hololens AR goggles available for all developers and companies within the United States and Canada. (You don´t have to be a qualified developer anymore.)

Up to five glasses can now be ordered directly through their online shop. It still costs 3.000 bucks. Only catch is still that you need your company´s residence within US / Canada. Europe and the rest of the world will still need to use fake US addresses to get one (just kidding, .. well kind-of).

Alex Kipman from the hololens team announces further updates on the official blog. Starting now, their is a new “HoloLens Commercial Suite” available to better support company needs with respect to the installation and roll-out of the AR glasses in their industrial sector and IT environment:

In this anniversary update (congratz!) they talk about the new suite (no price tag) and how it can support your company needs. You will get enterprise management with data encryption, vpn remote access to your network, a private store that only shows apps of your company and kiosk mode to limit which apps can be run. Full details on their new page here and the full release notes here.

The Commercial Suite seems like a good step towards in-business use, but feels a bit early to do so. I´d rather have broad availability first. But then again, they would be well prepared once they push the production (hopefully only with a DK2 with bigger field of view).

Looking forward to see more coming and to also get world-wide spread with the next wave, maybe?