The latest round of layoffs at Microsoft, which has announced it will cut its workforce by as many as 10,000 jobs, appears to be hitting key VR (virtual reality) and metaverse teams. The company will primarily shut down two projects: Altspacevr and Mixed Reality Tool Kit.
Microsoft teams affected by layoffs
The latest round of layoffs announced by Microsoft on Jan. 18 hit the company’s metaverse and VR initiatives, which could impact progress in those areas. Among the 10,000 employees expected to be laid off this year are experts on initiatives such as Altspacevr and the Mixed Reality Tool Kit.
Altspacevr was launched in 2017. The project’s platform was to provide services to facilitate the creation of virtual environments and events involving artists, creators, brands and companies.
The Mixed Reality Tool Kit, on the other hand, is an open source toolkit for creating user interfaces in the metaverse environment. And this team of the company will most likely be shut down.
While the company is justifying the recent layoffs as a way to align its cost structure with revenue and customer demand, some believe that these layoffs in the metaverse and VR teams signal a future, and rather obvious in these new circumstances, slowing of the company’s progress in these both areas.
The announced layoffs at Microsoft primarily relate to initiatives focused on the consumer metaverse. This is somewhat in line with the course Meta has taken, cutting 13% of its workforce and thus eliminating 11,000 jobs.
However, it is worth adding that Microsoft executives believe in metaverse and other cutting-edge technologies and in the progress they will bring in the future. Recently, Satya Nadella, the company’s CEO, said that the sense of presence that metaverse technology can provide is a game changer in the market.
Microsoft is also involved in the creation of the Global Collaboration Village (the metaverse of the World Economic Forum) and has shown interest in investing in AI (artificial intelligence) projects such as Openai, the creators of the AI bot Chatgpt.
