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Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

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Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#61

Post by noAnswer »

bitwize wrote: post #19
fragmede wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's spend in this area is totally unknown, other than everybody expects them to. To contrast, Meta has been spending so much in this area that they've bet the company on it. It's anybody's game right now, but Meta already has launched products and iterated on them.

Apple is built different as a tech company. They will keep everything a secret more closely guarded than the nuclear codes, then come out of nowhere with a mind-blowing product that leaves everything else in the dust, just like they did with the iPhone. A Quest 2 with an Apple Silicon CPU would, alone, be a game changer. There's probably some advanced head and eye tracking and SLAM AI in there too that makes Meta's s…

> ...then come out of nowhere...like they did with the iPhone

Everyone and their dog knew the iPhone was coming and what it was about.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#62

Post by roughly »

verdverm wrote: post #42
rel2thr wrote: post #36

Still blows my mind that the military was going to spend 20 billion on hololens

Battlefield AR will happen, the biggest thing holding all of the AR use cases up is hardware miniaturization. Smart glasses will be a thing in time

What’ll be interesting to watch there is the learning curve on what should go on an AR display in the middle of a firefight - various branches of the US military seem to follow a similar curve where they get very excited about technology and massively invest, only to find that 70lbs of networked infantry gear or a naval destroyer full of screens or a jet with no guns doesn’t actually enhance lethality the way the guys at General Dynamics said it would. Usually V2 is a bit more sane/practical, so I’ll be interested to see where they land on the HUDs.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#63

Post by roughly »

noAnswer wrote: post #61
bitwize wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is built different as a tech company. They will keep everything a secret more closely guarded than the nuclear codes, then come out of nowhere with a mind-blowing product that leaves everything else in the dust, just like they did with the iPhone. A Quest 2 with an Apple Silicon CPU would, alone, be a game changer. There's probably some advanced head and eye tracking and SLAM AI in there too that makes Meta's s…

> ...then come out of nowhere...like they did with the iPhone Everyone and their dog knew the iPhone was coming and what it was about.

Everyone knew an iPhone was coming, but the device itself was absolutely a bombshell launch.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#64

Post by paxys »

It's a pretty big leap to look at the shutdown of AltspaceVR (which already has a successor) and MRTK and conclude that "HoloLens, Virtual Reality, and Mixed Reality are all but dead at Microsoft." There are a TON of other active teams/projects working in the area. This is likely the side effect of a consolidation/reorg in the division.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#65

Post by sys_64738 »

noAnswer wrote: post #61
bitwize wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is built different as a tech company. They will keep everything a secret more closely guarded than the nuclear codes, then come out of nowhere with a mind-blowing product that leaves everything else in the dust, just like they did with the iPhone. A Quest 2 with an Apple Silicon CPU would, alone, be a game changer. There's probably some advanced head and eye tracking and SLAM AI in there too that makes Meta's s…

> ...then come out of nowhere...like they did with the iPhone Everyone and their dog knew the iPhone was coming and what it was about.

The form factor redefined the cellphone standard form factor. Apple would do the same for VR.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#66

Post by [deleted] »

mjr00 wrote: post #35
javajosh wrote: post #31

It's funny I keep thinking about how the same people might work on the same thing but with different terms. As a W2 employee you make great money, but your upside is capped. Your downside is never capped, of course. As a founder you make okay money, you have better upside. But the same corp that fired you will invest that money with the VC that funded you. So, either way, the capital flows through the corp to you, an…

I agree. I think the next 5-10 years will see a massive wave of new companies come out of this. There's been so much talent locked up in bigtech for so long. The amount of talent in these companies that have had golden handcuffs forever due to the continual rise of their stock grants is staggering. Now suddenly bigtech stock is down 50%+, and they can't issue enough RSUs to cover the compensation gap. Moreover, there…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#67

Post by cududa »

michaelt wrote: post #33
sublinear wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it really, or is it short term thinking?

Is HoloLens on a trajectory towards success, in your opinion? Seems to me it's far too expensive for gamers, and not all that useful for business - all I can find online are mock ups of hypothetical business uses, like telling mechanics which way to turn a spark plug to tighten it. To me that doesn't seem very useful. What are the chances a job is done so rarely your workers don't know the procedure already; and yet…

Congress just gave the military something like $75m-$150m to award to Microsoft to improve the hololens for battlefield readiness. It started as a high end niche business product. Demo'd well for the military. Business device shoehorned into military didn't work. But, if they can get it "military good" those enhancements will trickle down to business and eventually consumer use cases.

I generally roll my eyes at Military > Consumer path companies, but in this case? Not so much. Business > Military > Actual Military Usefulness > Mass Market is an interesting trajectory worth watching.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#68

Post by roughly »

dh2022 wrote: post #59
bitwize wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is built different as a tech company. They will keep everything a secret more closely guarded than the nuclear codes, then come out of nowhere with a mind-blowing product that leaves everything else in the dust, just like they did with the iPhone. A Quest 2 with an Apple Silicon CPU would, alone, be a game changer. There's probably some advanced head and eye tracking and SLAM AI in there too that makes Meta's s…

Re: "They will keep everything a secret[...]then come out of nowhere with a mind-blowing product" - that was true (in spades) during Steve Jobs era. What mind blowing product did Apple launch since Oct 2011? Under Tim Apple iterated competently, magnificently, [insert your favorite adjective here] but no mind blowing product....

The Apple Watch was launched in the era of Tim Cook, though I suppose it’s more “ipad revolutionary” (nobody had done it successfully) than “iPhone revolutionary” (nobody had tried). I’ll also say the AirPods are the most quietly competent products I own.

One could also argue for the M chips, which were absolutely game changing when they came out.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#69

Post by noAnswer »

bitwize wrote: post #16
iLoveOncall wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because Windows is far from being their core offering. Office is where the money is for Microsoft.

Azure is where the money is now.

It would be a dream if they would sell Windows to a non publicly traded company "to concentrate on their core competence".

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#70

Post by whatyesaid »

mjr00 wrote: post #35
javajosh wrote: post #31

It's funny I keep thinking about how the same people might work on the same thing but with different terms. As a W2 employee you make great money, but your upside is capped. Your downside is never capped, of course. As a founder you make okay money, you have better upside. But the same corp that fired you will invest that money with the VC that funded you. So, either way, the capital flows through the corp to you, an…

I agree. I think the next 5-10 years will see a massive wave of new companies come out of this. There's been so much talent locked up in bigtech for so long. The amount of talent in these companies that have had golden handcuffs forever due to the continual rise of their stock grants is staggering. Now suddenly bigtech stock is down 50%+, and they can't issue enough RSUs to cover the compensation gap. Moreover, there…

Are they really laying off their best people though or just Leetcoders? Also as far as I am aware, only Twitter really thinks it should be a 200 person company or whatever, whereas these companies actually super overhired during the pandemic predicting a bigger long term trend than turned out to be. That's why these layoffs aren't really that big news all in all.
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