Microsoft recently confirmed that it will cut about 5% of its workforce globally, leaving about 11,000 people across the company.
At that time, it was not certain which workers and departments would be the most affected, but the Internet spent a whole weekend exposing the situation, and many former employees have now revealed details about the matter.
One of the most notable cuts appears to be Microsoft’s extended reality (XR) operations, as it has closed or drastically scaled back a number of projects, including the popular Hololens headset.
Microsoft XR 2023 sales
AltSpaceVR, which the company acquired in 2017, has been among the hardest hit by the downgrades, with the arm scheduled to close in March 2023.
Some reports say that Microsoft’s metaverse efforts may continue to live on in their Mesh project, but all of that has yet to be confirmed.
An open source project, MRTK, has also been left out, which could have major implications for the company’s HoloLens future, but its open source nature leads some to speculate that it may be able to live on in somewhat reduced form.
The news joins recent reports that the US Congress has denied spending a whopping $400 million on Microsoft’s Army-designed HoloLens, even though the Army is still willing to spend a newly approved budget of $40 million on an upgraded version. of the headset, following complaints from servicemen about previous versions.
While the partnership continues to evolve, the bigger picture painted by the closing of several XR operations may spell the future of technology like Microsoft’s augmented reality (which, for now at least, looks a little troubling).