Tencent says stories of shutting down XR enterprise unfaithful, says it’s making personnel changes
Following a media report that it was eliminating roles throughout its “prolonged actuality” (XR) enterprise, Chinese language tech big Tencent Holdings got here clear and knowledgeable that it was making some personnel changes within the unit.
Whereas the tech behemoth kept away from elaborating on what sort of changes have been coming to its recently-formed unit, it instructed Reuters that stories claiming that its plans to disband the enterprise are unfaithful. As an alternative, the corporate is adjusting some enterprise groups to account for modifications in its growth plans for {hardware}.
This bodes properly for its workers, who have been fortunate sufficient to flee the axe. Few can declare the identical, particularly since this yr (and the higher half of the earlier yr) has been difficult for job-seekers and workers alike. An financial droop, fears of a recession, tumbling shares, rising inflation, and different hostile macroeconomic circumstances made it crucial for firms throughout the globe to scale back their workforces – and the tech business stays one of many worst hit by way of layoffs. Firms corresponding to Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Twitter rank amongst a few of the notable names to have partook in mass layoffs in latest months, and Tencent joined their ranks when it introduced price range cuts throughout its group final yr – after it clocked its first income decline ever. In November 2022, the Chinese language firm started a brand new spherical of job cuts focused at its video streaming, gaming, and cloud companies.
Tencent’s assertion that it isn’t disbanding its XR enterprise comes after Chinese language tech outlet 36Kr had reported that Tencent notified the workers on the XR unit – a quantity that crosses the 300-mark – that they’d be supplied a window of two months to seek out new inner or exterior alternatives, and that the XR enterprise could be disbanded. The report cited unnamed sources. The XR unit had been shaped the unit in June 2022 to be the lynchpin of Tencent’s metaverse ambitions and embrace software program and {hardware} alike. For many who are unaware, prolonged actuality refers to immersive applied sciences – corresponding to AR and VR, that are thought-about to be the constructing blocks of the metaverse.
Moreover, it highlights the shift of the corporate from being centered on software program, video games, and social media functions to diversifying its enterprise past its core strengths. With the craze for the metaverse build up since 2021 – after Fb was rebranded to Meta – the tech is taken into account to be the way forward for the web and the following large factor within the tech world. Unsurprisingly, this has spurred a race between a number of tech giants – Meta and Tencent rank amongst them – though the metaverse itself is but to make its debut.
