Microvision continues to make thinly veiled accusations against this blog in their May 9th, 2012 Company Displayground Blog (quoting directly with my bold emphasis added):

“Our shareholders are following the topic of direct green lasers with avid interest and we get a lot of questions from them on price and availability. They have ridden the green laser wave with MicroVision and are understandably anxious for their investment and patience to pay off. There is another group of MicroVision watchers that take an active interest in direct green lasers and for that matter, all things MicroVision and have quite a bit to say. We welcome such interest as we are really proud of what our patented solution can do and the advancements we have made with the PicoP Gen2 display technology. But it does get tiring to have an open mic of misinformation from parties who only seem to have an interest in not seeing Microvision succeed. We try and ignore this contingent just like the best thing to do when a fly is buzzing around your head is to ignore it. Eventually the fly finds something or someone else to buzz around and the problem resolves itself.“

Like most things Microvision writes they raise more questions than they answer.  For example, who is this “group” of watchers that “ have quite a bit to say” about green lasers?  As far as I know, this is the only blog regularly writing about green lasers for small projectors.   I guess they feel like I have them surrounded :-).   I would suggest that the real reason they cannot ignore the “buzzing sound” is that is goes contrary to Microvision’s attempts at obfuscation and eventually their investors and analysts ask questions.

I take the most interest went key specs are missing or when states what is at best a half-truth.  From what I read, Microvision obfuscates, uses straw-men, half-truths,  give meaningless ratios of improvements, and state goals/expectations as if they have been met.  They could put this all to rest if they could be specific about what they consider “misinformation” and give direct clear answers.  

$200 Green Laser Clarification:

Microvision’s blog when on to clarify(?) what Microvision’s Lance Evan’s was saying green lasers costing nearly $200 that I address in my April 30th blog.  Quoting directly from the Microvision Blog:

“The price of direct green lasers is understandably a topic of speculation since the manufacturers of the diodes have not publicly discussed pricing or even the exact timing of commercial availability. We cannot reveal specifics around these issues, but we can and have stated that we expect the prices of direct green lasers to be significantly less than synthetic green lasers which have cost nearly $200. “

Microvision, apparently in response to my blog on the “nearly $200” price of DGL clarified that Mr. Evan’s $200 remark was in reference to the synthetic green lasers.   But note it is only an “expectation” (as in some time in the future) that the prices will be lower.

It is also interesting that Microvision is admitting publicly that the lasers were costing them nearly $200 (or maybe more at some point).  You have to wonder why they went to market with the ShowWX using a $200 laser for projector with only 10 to 15 lumens.  Can you imagine what investor reaction would have been back in 2009, 2010, or 2011 if they knew that Microvision was selling a supposedly high volume consumer product with a $200 laser in it?   My speculation is that unless they agreed to pay $200 for the lasers and buy a lot of them, that they would have had no way to build any product and if they couldn’t show (some pun intended) and that would make it impossible to raise money.   To keep investors on the hook, so to speak, they had to use obfuscation about the cost of lasers (some things never seem to change).  The losses on the ShowWx were essentially marketing expenses to raise money from the “shareholders” that were following the company back then.

They seem to have made the calculation that they needed to loose many millions of dollars on the ShowWx product line in order to keep the investor money flowing in.  Now that they consider those losses in the rear view mirror, they are admitting to them.   I wonder when they will come clean on the cost and specs of today’s direct green lasers.

More Half-Truths from Microvision

One more interesting set of half truths from Microvision’s blog:

“We are confident that the manufacturers of the direct green lasers will be able to meet the volume requirements as the market demand for direct green lasers grows, and we expect price to fall accordingly.”

The first half-truth is that “manufacturers of the direct green lasers will be able to meet the volume requirements.”  Yes, this is true today, but only because the volumes will be very low.   Among the reasons is that the price of the lasers will be very high and that they are not currently designed into any high volume products.   Secondly, by laws of supply and demand, if the lasers are expensive few will be bought and thus they will meet the volume requirements.  Thirdly, the growth in the market could be very slow so it would be easy to meet what Microvision “expects.”    In short, Microvision like a politician, used a lot of words to give no real information.

What Microvision won’t admit, I suspect because that would be bad for raising money, is that the direct green laser has so far proven difficult to make due to the physics involved.    Certainly very smart and capable people are working on DGL, but they are not ready in the near future for the high volume consumer products.