Microvision has announced that Azimuth Opportunity (an investment company) will be buying 17.7 million shares for $60 milion. Azimuth has actually only agreed to buy as many as 17.7 million shares while Microvision will decide if and when the shares will be sold. Microvision sure needs the money - in 2Q 2010 they have lost $11.1 million.
Unbelievable
I am again amazed at how a company who is hemorrhaging money (quarter after quarter), can raise that much more money without having a product that can actually make it in the embedded space (cell phones, etc.) of which they claim is the key market they must compete in. The technology and light source costs significantly more than any other solution and their image quality (speckle and color balance - not to mention the lack of real resolution for text) leaves a lot to be desired, yet the VCs are seriously deluding themselves into thinking that this will make tons of money.
This just makes me wonder whether the VCs are really that stupid and gullible or does Microvision talk that good of a game or both. At any rate, it will take many years to even come close to breaking even, let alone making any significant profit.
The biggest issue is the cost and is not likely to come down to the level it has to for several years. The cost of the lasers are currently at ~$80 -$120 per projector (best price I have seen to date in volume). The laser alone is 3-5 times more that the allowed total cost of the projector that the major carriers have stated at $25 (USD). Keep in mind that they are currently selling their module between $500-$700 (USD). this is more than 20X the allowed price. Even with significant cost reductions in the lasers, Microvision will be hard pressed to get under a selling price of $100 in the next 3 years, let alone the current $25 target, which is expected to drop to under $20 within 2 years. Even DLP, which is still too high, can do better than Microvision.
This prohibitive price/cost coupled with poor image quality leads me to believe that this technology is inferior and not able to compete with all the other LCOS projectors.