AR firm Magic Leap lays off 1,000 employees as it pivots to enterprise
Augmented reality startup Magic Leap is cutting about half of its workforce under coronavirus pressure, and is shifting away from consumer devices toward enterprise partnerships.
Magic Leap released its first device in 2018 after seven years of development and nearly $2 billion in funding. Credit: Magic Leap
Magic Leap, which was founded in 2011, unveiled its first consumer-facing headset in 2018 after nearly seven years of stealth work and nearly $2 billion in funding. But, like virtually every other facet of the tech industry, the nascent AR sphere has been hit hard by the coronavirus.
The startup confirmed its layoff plans in a press release detailing its broader corporate restructuring.
"The recent changes to the economic environment have decreased availability of capital and the appetite for longer term investments," CEO Rony Abovitz wrote, adding that "the near-term revenue opportunities are currently concentrated on the enterprise side."
That's a shift that the company was already in the midst of making. Following a reportedly lukewarm reception and subpar sales of its $2,295 mixed-reality (MR) headset, Magic Leap made several efforts to attract business customers. In March, the startup tried to pitch its headset as a remote work device during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Magic Leap says it's still developing its upcoming Magic Leap 2 headset, and is currently "negotiating revenue generating strategic partnerships that underscore the value of Magic Leap's technology platform in the enterprise market."
The company's move echoes similar shifts to the enterprise by other players in the AR industry. In 2017, Google's Glass project bounced back from a failed consumer push with the release of its Google Glass Enterprise Edition. In May 2019, the company released the second iteration of its enterprise headset.
Microsoft has also focused on enterprise applications with its HoloLens 2 device. Originally announced in February 2019, Microsoft only started shipping the headset in November of that year. As of 2020, Microsoft said it has shipped "thousands" of HoloLens 2 to "hundreds" of enterprise customers, including NASA.
While the wearable AR market is still relatively uncrowded, Apple is said to be working some type of head-mounted MR or AR device that could debut as soon as 2022, per the latest available information.
Magic Leap released its first device in 2018 after seven years of development and nearly $2 billion in funding. Credit: Magic Leap
Magic Leap, which was founded in 2011, unveiled its first consumer-facing headset in 2018 after nearly seven years of stealth work and nearly $2 billion in funding. But, like virtually every other facet of the tech industry, the nascent AR sphere has been hit hard by the coronavirus.
The startup confirmed its layoff plans in a press release detailing its broader corporate restructuring.
"The recent changes to the economic environment have decreased availability of capital and the appetite for longer term investments," CEO Rony Abovitz wrote, adding that "the near-term revenue opportunities are currently concentrated on the enterprise side."
That's a shift that the company was already in the midst of making. Following a reportedly lukewarm reception and subpar sales of its $2,295 mixed-reality (MR) headset, Magic Leap made several efforts to attract business customers. In March, the startup tried to pitch its headset as a remote work device during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Magic Leap says it's still developing its upcoming Magic Leap 2 headset, and is currently "negotiating revenue generating strategic partnerships that underscore the value of Magic Leap's technology platform in the enterprise market."
The company's move echoes similar shifts to the enterprise by other players in the AR industry. In 2017, Google's Glass project bounced back from a failed consumer push with the release of its Google Glass Enterprise Edition. In May 2019, the company released the second iteration of its enterprise headset.
Microsoft has also focused on enterprise applications with its HoloLens 2 device. Originally announced in February 2019, Microsoft only started shipping the headset in November of that year. As of 2020, Microsoft said it has shipped "thousands" of HoloLens 2 to "hundreds" of enterprise customers, including NASA.
While the wearable AR market is still relatively uncrowded, Apple is said to be working some type of head-mounted MR or AR device that could debut as soon as 2022, per the latest available information.
Comments
Man I'm in the wrong business....
Previously, on Daringfireball:
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/10/16/merchant-magic-leap
Even the US Army has a version of HoloLens in development through an almost $500 million contract with the potential to purchase ~100,000 headsets:
While it's easy to miss when you're focused so heavily on viewing numbers in the consumer market, the enterprise market has a lot of innovation in the AR unfolding.
They all look bulky, ugly and uncomfortable until Apple does it. Then they all look the same.
As to the user that said no one wants to wear a helmet. Again, look outside of the consumer market.
Yes, that's even an appropriately rated impact visor protecting your eyes.
As the hardware continues to mature, future headsets will become smaller and easier to integrate in various form factors. That's the direction they're headed, with or without Apple.
To a company like Microsoft, HoloLens 2 is so much more than just the headset, it's a complete integration between various systems, components and even their own Azure cloud. For example, they're able to render extremely high fidelity visuals on Azure while a user displays and interacts with it via the headset in real-time.
With a failure to understand the market and the use cases, it's no wonder comments like yours are appearing here.
Leveraging the existing ecosystem for iOS and full control over every detail, I think that Apple may do for AR the same as iPads did for tablets. It may be so hard for anyone else to get any traction outside of gaming that it could be difficult for other devices to compete.
So a heavy, bulky hideous helmet is a better application than just glasses? With glasses you can hear a helmet or a cowboy hat if you need to... or just the glasses.
Display, power cell and transmitter circuitry is integrated into the lense, the receiver (possibly a cell phone) contains the processor ... and sits in your pocket or military vest. That concept makes helmets and glasses seem archaic.
Some might ask how we managed to focus a display which is literally touching the user's eye without distorting everything else. To explain a little about that, I'm pleased to invite to the stage our President of Wizardry, Stephen Strange.