Microsoft is pausing its industrial Metaverse project amid tightening economic conditions to focus on short-term revenue-generating ventures. As a result, all 100 employees who were working on this project have been let go.
People with knowledge of the matter say that the tech giant has grown frustrated by the amount of investment required before its industrial Metaverse project starts generating revenue. It wasn’t ideal for a company that has already let go of over 10,000 employees since the start of the year. Microsoft are trying to cut costs and stay lean during these times of economic hardship.
Before putting the project on hold, Microsoft was one of the leading players in the industrial Metaverse segment.
The disbandment of the industrial Metaverse team comes as a punch in the gut for the group that had been formed only four months earlier. The group was tasked with building interfaces for healthcare, retail financial services, and energy sector clients that were looking to leverage Metaverse technology to improve their productivity and efficiency.
Microsoft assembled the team after successfully managing to lock down several partnerships with top companies such as Kawasaki Robotics. Here, the goal was to explore robotics through digital twinning technology to improve productivity and efficiency. Thus, Kawasaki Robotics engineers utilized Microsoft’s HoloLens to overlay 3D virtual models of products on real-life structures.
Also, its cloud service arm, Azure, had teamed up with Hadean, a Metaverse tech startup, with the goal of delivering secure cloud-based military training capabilities.
Microsoft Still Has Plans For Industrial Metaverse
Despite the move, Microsoft maintains that the industrial metaverse project remains part of its future plans. In an email to Coindesk, the company notes:
“We are applying our focus to the areas of the industrial metaverse that matter most to our customers, and they will see no change in how they are supported. We look forward to sharing additional information in the future.”
The Metaverse is shaping up to be a tough nut to crack as most companies toil to figure out how best to bring forth this future digital universe. Unlike Microsoft, Meta is still pushing on despite incurring huge losses. They understand there is a price to pay for trying to figure out the unknown.
