News JVTech “This industry does not forgive”, Microsoft buries this revolutionary project
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Not content with its position, the multinational had seen the big picture and rushed to invest in an innovative new industry in 2017. Nevertheless, despite all its efforts to develop this revolutionary project, Microsoft failed to make it happen. carry out. Thus, the American company was forced to end it recently.
Microsoft’s ambitious project, unknown to the general public
In 2017, the tech giant acquired AltspaceVR, a company that had ambitions to build the metaverse before Mark Zuckerberg seized on the subject by renaming Facebook to Meta.
Founded in 2015, the platform is a virtual environment meant to provide an immersive social experience for users. Concretely, AltspaceVR allowed people with a virtual reality headset to meet online by embodying avatars to do different activities in the digital world.
In a delicate financial situation, the company was then saved by Microsoft 6 years ago. Once bought by the giant, the project was officially presented as an online social platform boosted by VR, it is clear that this is similar to the current definition of a metaverse.
“When AltspaceVR first launched, our vision was to create a place where people around the world could connect and socialize in real time. We knew Virtual Reality (VR) could be a fun place for immersive gaming, and more importantly, we believed in the power of social VR to bring people together, connect, and create experiences for sharing. says Microsoft.
“This industry does not forgive”, AltspaceVR is no more
Although innovative for the time, the platform must meet new requirements with the enthusiasm around the metaverse. Through an official press release, Microsoft announced the sad end of this metaverse-like precursor. Precisely, AltspaceVR will officially close its virtual doors in less than 2 months, on March 10th. However, according to Microsoft, this disappearance should allow the company to focus more specifically on its other VR project: Microsoft Mesh.
Mesh is the extension of the Microsoft Teams video conferencing application for people with VR headsets. This 3D platform used by professionals allows users to collaborate in an immersive digital workplace.
“As we look to the future, we see the opportunity for virtual reality to expand beyond the consumer to the enterprise and now have an even bigger goal: a more open, accessible and secure version of immersive experiences in the metaverse. To achieve this, we made the difficult decision to retire the AltpaceVR platform on March 10, 2023 and focus on supporting immersive experiences powered by Microsoft Mesh. explains Microsoft.
This news comes as the firm has just laid off a significant part of its business (about 10,000 jobs) “to remain an important company in this unforgiving industry”.
In addition to the resource and energy savings linked to the closure of AltspaceVR, it turns out that the metaverse is not among the priorities of the multinational. With a recent investment of 10 billion in OpenAI, Microsoft’s strategy is firmly focused on artificial intelligence for the year 2023.
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