The round of layoffs at Microsoft particularly affects employees working on virtual and mixed reality.
Microsoft announced last week that it would lay off 10,000 people, or about 5 percent of its workforce. Of course, these layoffs concern different departments, but it is striking that the teams around metaverse, virtual and mixed reality are virtually disappearing in practice.
For example, the entire team behind AltSpaceVR, which focuses on virtual work environments, is being fired. Although, AltSpaceVR was a company that was acquired in 2017, due to the layoffs, the platform itself would also be discontinued in March.
At the same time, the team behind the Mixed Reality Toolkit has also been fired. That kit is a cross-platform framework for VR environments.
People are also being fired at Hololens, Microsoft’s mixed reality glasses. As far as we know, not to the extent that the entire team is gone, but several media outlets note that efforts around the headset have been scaled back. Unfortunately, that also goes hand in hand with several setbacks over the past year: The contract with the US military was severely reduced after dissatisfaction with the suitability of the headset and lead developer Alex Kipman announced his departure from Microsoft.
However, the company does not completely stop its activities in and around the metaverse. This is how Mesh will continue to exist. The Mesh platform makes it possible, among other things, to use avatars in Teams. But a large focus on virtual environments seems to have disappeared with this round of layoffs before it really got going.
