Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks during a media briefing on the company’s campus in Redmond, Washington, on May 20, 2024.
Jonah Kassinger | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Microsoft A spokesperson told CNBC on Monday that the company will lay off some employees working on mixed reality. Although the layoffs will affect the division responsible for the HoloLens 2 augmented reality headset, Microsoft plans to continue selling the device.
A year ago, the software maker said it would revamp its hardware lineup as part of a round of layoffs that hit 10,000 employees, including some mixed reality employees. Over the next few months, Microsoft discontinued several keyboard models, frustrating some loyal customers.
“Earlier today, we announced a reorganization of the Microsoft Mixed Reality organization,” a spokesperson said in an email. “We remain fully committed to the Department of Defense’s IVAS program and will continue to provide cutting-edge technology to support our warfighters. Additionally, we will continue to invest in the W365 to reach the broader mixed reality hardware ecosystem. We will continue to sell HoloLens 2 , while supporting existing HoloLens 2 customers and partners.
Microsoft hasn’t had a huge success with HoloLens since launching it in 2015, but the U.S. Department of Defense offered the company a contract for an improved HoloLens called the “Integrated Vision Augmentation System.” But soldiers using the devices experienced nausea and other symptoms, Bloomberg reported. Tests show the updated model looks promising.
But since then, Microsoft and its highly valued tech peers have poured billions of dollars into commercializing artificial intelligence. Microsoft has raced to deploy Nvidia Graphics processing unit so people can use the Copilot chatbot and Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT. Advanced AI capabilities in Microsoft 365 productivity apps can write memos, draft presentations, and summarize meetings.
In December, Microsoft further reduced its investment in augmented reality and virtual reality, which are isolated from the world around them, when it Deprecated Windows Mixed Reality, which includes tools for running applications in headsets.
A spokesperson said Microsoft will continue to sell the HoloLens 2 headset released in 2019, but did not say it would launch a new model. Insider In 2022 it was reported that the company had canceled the third version.
apple In January it launched its own augmented reality headset, the Vision Pro.
Microsoft continues to support a feature called Mesh, which allows people wearing headphones to participate in three-dimensional Teams video calls with colleagues. At the Microsoft Ignite conference in Seattle in November, CEO Satya Nadella said the company was “reimagining the way employees come together and connect using any device, whether it’s a PC, HoloLens, or Yuan seek.
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