The US Army is not happy with the $21.88 billion investment in Microsoft

It seems that the US Army’s big bet on Microsoft to produce a military-specific HoloLens 2 is not going as expected, and it has now been revealed that the agreement, valued at $21.88 billion, has run into various issues such as lags and clutter on Microsoft’s augmented reality team. The biggest problem is that not even the soldiers themselves want to use the Integrated Audiovisual System (VAT). The deal involves the sale of 121,500 units of these glasses.

An audit by the United States Department of Defense found that “IVAS program officials did not define minimum user acceptance levels to determine if IVAS would meet their needs“. This happened because the Army did not require officials to define “appropriate levels of user acceptance“. According to the audit, the IVAS contract could represent a great loss for the United States Army since it is difficult to determine if the IVAS project will be useful for the Army.

“Acquiring IVAS without gaining user acceptance could waste up to $21.88 billion in taxpayer funds to put in place a system soldiers may not want to use, or use as intended,” the report says. .

“Survey results show both positive and negative user acceptance. Army officials stated that it was difficult to gauge soldier opinion.”

“Officials also stated that challenges in assessing user acceptance included asking the right questions, Soldiers not liking the changes, comparing ‘in-process’ system prototypes to current capabilities, and the lack of knowledge or training of the soldiers on the new systems.”

“Program officials stated that if Soldiers don’t like IVAS and don’t think it greatly improves mission accomplishment, then Soldiers won’t use it.“.

via: The Register