Magic Leap’s next-generation augmented reality headset is reportedly ‘years away from launch’

guest · Dec 6, 2019

Magic Leap’s next-generation headset is reportedly ‘years away from launch’
Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses
December 6, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/6/...ototype-layoffs-low-sales-sundar-pichai-board

Magic Leap’s sales numbers reportedly haven’t matched CEO Rony Abovitz’s high expectations — and a second-generation headset could be years away from release. The Information has published a sobering update on the much-hyped augmented reality company, which released its first product last year.
According to former employees and people close to the company, Magic Leap had sold around 6,000 Magic Leap One headsets six months after release, compared to a goal of 100,000.

Meanwhile, The Information reports that two high-profile board members left quietly in 2018: Google CEO Sundar Pichai and former Qualcomm executive chairman Paul Jacobs.
But Magic Leap has also reportedly laid off dozens of employees in the past weeks. Last month, Business Insider reported that two executives, CFO Scott Henry and SVP of creative strategy John Gaeta, had left the company.

Magic Leap told The Information that its report was “littered with inaccuracies and misleading statements.” But it’s difficult to gauge the company’s progress. The initial wave of hype around AR has worn off, so Magic Leap is simultaneously facing public disillusionment and potential competition from Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft — all of which are interested in AR glasses.
Click to expand...

The Information: Dented Reality: Magic Leap Sees Slow Sales, Steep Losses

Magic Leap had high hopes for sales of its augmented reality headset. Instead, the richly valued startup has seen slow sales of the device, recent layoffs and executive turnover. In the coming years, competition in AR will likely intensify as bigger tech companies enter the market.
Click to expand...

guest · Dec 10, 2019

Magic Leap shifts focus to business with an updated AR headset
But will new apps and a bundle of services do the trick?
December 10, 2019
https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/10/magic-leap-enterprise-suite/

Magic Leap's augmented reality headset reportedly hasn't sold well so far, but the company might have a way to turn its fortunes around: pitch the device as a business tool.

It's launching an Enterprise Suite that includes a Magic Leap 1 headset (an update to the One Creator Edition) as well as two years each for dedicated support, device management tools, fast device replacements and extended warranties. You'll also have access to a host of AR-friendly work apps from third parties that cover areas like collaboration, "location-based experiences" (think museums and product tours) and 3D visualization for design and medicine.

The Enterprise Suite isn't a trivial purchase at $2,995 per headset, but Magic Leap is clearly betting that the extra $700 over the lone headset will be worthwhile for companies that need both oversight tools and a guarantee that they'll have functional units.

The challenge is convincing companies that Magic Leap's headsets are worth the investment in the first place.
Click to expand...

Magic Leap: Spatial Computing for Enterprise: rewrite the rules of your industry

guest · Mar 12, 2020

Magic Leap is reportedly trying to find a buyer
The company is counting on its Magic Leap 2 AR headset to boost weak sales
March 12, 2020
https://www.engadget.com/2020/03/12/magic-leap-up-for-sale/

Following poor sales with its first augmented reality (AR) headset, Magic Leap is seeking a buyer for at least part of its business, according to Bloomberg.
The company has reportedly already spoken with Facebook and Johnson & Johnson and insiders said it could fetch up to $10 billion in a sale. It would also consider a strategic partnership or other deal ahead of a potential listing.

Facebook took a meeting with Magic Leap but reportedly isn't interested in buying it right now, as the social network is still trying to make its Oculus investment work. Johnson & Johnson declined to comment.
Click to expand...

Led by CEO Rony Abovitz, Magic Leap is one of the better financed startups out there, with investors including Google and Alibaba Group. The company has raised around $2.6 billion to develop its augmented reality headset and is valued at up to $8 billion.
However, the rich investment has yet to translate into commercial success.
Click to expand...

guest · Apr 22, 2020

AR startup Magic Leap plans layoffs as focus shifts to enterprise
April 22, 2020
https://www.fiercevideo.com/tech/ar-startup-magic-leap-plans-layoffs-as-focus-shifts-to-enterprise

Magic Leap, an augmented reality startup with financial backing from AT&T, Google and others, said it will layoff some employees due to coronavirus-related business impacts.
The company announced the layoffs in a blog post but didn’t specify how many employees across the company will be affected.

Abovitz said recent changes to the economic environment have decreased availability of capital and the appetite for longer term investments.
He said there’s still long-term potential of Magic Leap’s IP, but the near-term revenue opportunities are currently concentrated on the enterprise side. That shift in focus to enterprise applications will help the company make sure it can deliver Magic Leap 2 and expand its product-market fit and revenue generation.
Click to expand...

Bloomberg: Magic Leap Cuts Half of Jobs In Major Restructuring

Magic Leap: Charting a New Course

While our leadership team, board, and investors still believe in the long-term potential of our IP, the near-term revenue opportunities are currently concentrated on the enterprise side.
Click to expand...

guest · Apr 24, 2020

Magic Leap’s consumer retreat is good news for the AR/XR industry
April 23, 2020
https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/23/magic-leaps-consumer-retreat-is-good-news-for-the-ar-xr-industry/

The company radically overpromised what it would deliver as a user experience, created a product too expensive for consumers to buy, and barely found third-party developers willing to support its platform with apps.
On the (very rare) occasions I’ve actually seen Magic Leap headsets in public, they’ve proved fidgety to wear, with small “augmented” viewing areas and only modestly interesting software.

Yesterday, we reported that Magic Leap was laying off an unspecified number of employees and sharpening its focus on enterprise opportunities, but its blog post didn’t do justice to what was happening.
It would be easy to describe the news as a sign of some broader disinterest in AR or mixed reality (XR) technologies, but that’s clearly not true.

[...] Magic Leap set its initial price for developers at $2,300, then offered a $3,000 package in an effort to cover ongoing service costs.
If Magic Leap had relied on an existing mobile platform — iOS or Android — it could have focused on just getting the glasses right.
Click to expand...

Magic Leap’s troubles aside, my gut feeling is that everything’s going to work out just fine for the XR industry as a whole. It’s clear at this point that the Magicverse won’t be at the center of everything. But once the dust settles, expect a big bang-class multiverse of competing and perhaps more viable visions, backed by more practical and affordable AR hardware.
Click to expand...

guest · Apr 25, 2020

Augmented reality hits economic reality in the case of Magic Leap
April 25, 2020
https://venturebeat.com/2020/04/25/...s-economic-reality-in-the-case-of-magic-leap/

Magic Leap just announced its intention to focus on the enterprise market, after years of branding itself as a consumer device company. The corporate press release blamed COVID-19 for the required pivot, and nearly 1,000 employee have been laid-off; almost half its workforce.
However, this shift toward the enterprise market is not driven by the COVID-19 crisis. It is a case of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and remote reality (RR) hitting up against economic reality (ER).

Only a minority of (regular) people are willing to pay a lot of money for experiences that can’t populate their Instagram feed. Given a price tag of $2,300-$3,000 for its Magic Leap One goggles, market success would have required a whole lot of social cache to be viable long-term.
Click to expand...

Magic Leap was too far removed from real reality to allow for deep penetration of the consumer market. So the move to the enterprise and defense markets makes sense. COVID-19, while not to blame, just accelerated that realization.
Click to expand...

guest · May 22, 2020

Magic Leap has apparently raised another $350 million, in spite of itself
May 21, 2020
https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/21/m...aised-another-350-million-in-spite-of-itself/

Magic Leap has reportedly received a $350 million lifeline, a month after slashing 1,000 jobs and dropping its consumer business. Noted by Business Insider and confirmed by The Information, CEO Rony Abovitz sent a note to staff announcing the funding, courtesy of unnamed current and new investors.

The who — and more importantly, why — isn’t clear. A key healthcare company may be involved. Whatever the case, the company is withdrawing the WARN notice (a 60-day notification for large-scale layoffs) sent to staff in late April. The move represents an apparent reversal of the massive layoff round it previously announced.
Click to expand...

In spite of the change, it seems that the lavishly funded augmented reality company still plans to turn all of its focus to the enterprise, as previously announced — a move that puts it in more direct competition with the likes of Microsoft’s HoloLens.

“We are making very good progress in our healthcare, enterprise, and defense deals,” Abovitz writes. “As these deals close, we will be able to announce them.”

Magic Leap cited COVID-19 as a key reason for April’s news.
Click to expand...

guest · May 29, 2020

Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz to Step Down After Company Fails to Deliver
May 29, 2020
https://wccftech.com/magic-leap-ceo-rony-abovitz-to-step-down-after-company-fails-to-deliver/

Magic Leap has closed a capital round that will give it much-needed runway, but CEO Rony Abovitz will no longer be at the helm according to a memo obtained by Business Insider.

Magic Leap's latest — it's tenth — round amounted to $350 million. This brings the total funds raised to $3 billion, per Crunchbase. Magic Leap counts the who's-who of venture capitalists in its ranks, from Kleiner Perkins to Andreessen Horowitz and Singapore's Temasek Holdings.
Despite the impressive fundraise, Magic Leap has only released one product: the Magic Leap 1 headset (formerly known as the Magic Leap One Creator Edition).
Click to expand...

Last fall, Wccftech spoke with Glimpse Group’s, a startup incubator in New York City that purchases early-stage AR/VR companies, CEO Lyron Bentovim about the future of AR headsets.

"I was initially very supportive of their product. It’s not much better than the HoloLens, and I think the HoloLens 2 is even better. I’m disappointed in what Magic Leap did, and I’m shocked that they raised that kind of money. But hardware is a hard game to play," Bentovim said of the Magic Leap compared to the HoloLens.
Click to expand...

guest · Jun 16, 2020

What’s left of Magic Leap?
The dream of mixed reality is on life support
June 16, 2020
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/16/21274638/magic-leap-app-store-partnerships-update

In 2016, Magic Leap looked like it would change the world. The company had raised over $2 billion by promising incredible hardware that would open up a new artistic medium — the first plausible avatar for the long-held dream of mixed reality.

Now, Magic Leap seems barely afloat. On May 21st, the company laid off around 1,000 employees before getting a last-minute $350 million investment that many saw as a lifeline. The following week, founder Rony Abovitz stepped down as CEO.
That raises an uncomfortable question: with the starry-eyed vision stripped away, what does Magic Leap have left? [...]
Click to expand...

[...] the Magic Leap that dazzled futurists looks gone for good. It made a very specific bet on consumer mixed reality, and for the foreseeable future, it’s lost that bet — whether because of the pandemic crash, specific management decisions, or just making plans that outpaced its technology.
Many of its high-profile relationships and ambitious app concepts seem stalled or effectively ended.
Click to expand...

guest · Jul 6, 2020

Fading Light: the story of Magic Leap’s lost mixed reality magnum opus
One of the startup’s most exciting projects is finished, but will anyone see it?
July 6, 2020
https://www.theverge.com/21311586/magic-leap-studios-last-light-project-mixed-reality-sxsw

In April 2020, the weird and ambitious startup Magic Leap cut its workforce in half and delayed plans to take mixed reality glasses mainstream. The company had a wealth of ideas about how ordinary people might use its hardware, which overlays virtual images on reality.

Inside the company, though, a few dozen developers were building what they describe as one of Magic Leap’s most exciting projects. It’s called The Last Light: an interactive story about a young woman dealing with the death of her grandmother, designed to show the storytelling potential of mixed reality. And crucially, its creators say it’s finished — but they aren’t sure if anyone will ever see it.
Click to expand...

[...]
Rather than a single company’s failure, it feels like a painfully familiar story for many people living through the pandemic: a dream that looked finally ready to become reality, until reality broke down around it.
For now, former Studios staff are still wondering if The Last Light will ever leave Magic Leap’s servers. “Everyone worked really hard on this,” says Adnani. “I wish they would just press the button and release it.”
Click to expand...

guest · Jul 7, 2020

Magic Leap hires top Microsoft exec Peggy Johnson as CEO
Another step toward business for Magic Leap
July 7, 2020
https://www.geekwire.com/2020/magic-leap-hires-microsoft-exec-peggy-johnson-ceo/

Microsoft leader Peggy Johnson is departing and will become the chief executive officer at high-profile augmented reality startup Magic Leap.
Johnson’s last day at Microsoft is Tuesday and she will start at Magic Leap on Aug. 1.

Johnson joined Microsoft in 2014 as executive vice president of business development. [...] Now she’ll take the reins at Magic Leap, the secretive and well-funded company headquartered in Plantation, Fla., that recently laid off workers and shifted its focus to business customers.

“Since its founding in 2011, Magic Leap has pioneered the field of spatial computing, and I have long admired the relentless efforts and accomplishments of this exceptional team,” Johnson said in a statement. “Magic Leap’s technological foundation is undeniable, and there is no question that has the potential to shape the future of XR and computing.”
Click to expand...

Magic Leap: Magic Leap Appoints Peggy Johnson as New Chief Executive Officer

In her new role, Ms. Johnson will draw on more than 30 years of experience at the highest levels of technology and business to accelerate Magic Leap’s growth and bring transformative enterprise solutions to market.
Click to expand...

guest · Oct 11, 2021

Magic Leap shows off Magic Leap 2 with larger FoV
October 11, 2021
https://mspoweruser.com/magic-leap-shows-off-magic-leap-2-with-larger-fov/

Today Magic Leap showed off the second generation of their Augmented Reality headset, the Magic Leap 2.

The Magic Leap says the Magic Leap 2 will be the industry’s smallest and lightest device built for enterprise adoption.
The headset boasts critical updates that make it more immersive and even more comfortable, with leading optics, the largest field of view in the industry, and dimming – a new innovation that enables the headset to be used in brightly lit settings, in addition to a significantly smaller and lighter form factor.
Click to expand...

The Magic Leap 2 is expected to hit shelves in 2022.
Click to expand...

guest · Oct 11, 2021

Magic Leap’s Making a New Headset and Someone Thinks It’s Worth Half-a-Billion Dollars
October 11, 2021
https://gizmodo.com/magic-leap-s-making-a-new-headset-and-someone-thinks-it-1847841170

Just when you thought Magic Leap had disappeared into the graveyard of failed AR headsets, the company announced today that it had raised another $500 million at a $2 billion valuation. Oh, and it’s working on a second version of its headset for release next year.

The news came straight from Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson during an interview on CNBC’s Power Lunch. Johnson revealed that the device would be called the Magic Leap 2 and that it would be a true “all-day” device.
You can see a render of the device in the CNBC interview, as well as two inexplicably zoomed-in shots from Johnson’s LinkedIn and a Magic Leap press release.
Click to expand...

“This investment is an important step in advancing Magic Leap’s mission to transform the way we work,” Johnson said in a statement about the company’s new round of funding.

Before Johnson came on last summer, the struggling company had been looking for a buyer to stay afloat. It then laid off 1,000 employees as part of a major restructuring before miraculously conjuring yet another $350 million out of thin air.
Only time will tell if it’s a success or a meme-able, overhyped flop like its predecessor.
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 7, 2023

After struggling with consumers, Magic Leap hang its hopes on enterprise
By Brian Heater @bheater - January 7, 2023

Something wasn’t working. In late 2020, Magic Leap announced a major change spearheaded by incoming CEO, Peggy Johnson. “[W]hat I found was nothing was really broken,” she told the press at the time, “It just needed to have a bit more focus.”
Click to expand...

From the outside, certainly, it seemed like typically understated Chief Executive speak. It doesn’t take a business genius to point out that things weren’t working. It wasn’t a reflection on the technology, certainly. Those who’ve managed to try Magic Leap’s mixed reality headsets have been impressed. I spent time with the product at CES this week, and it certainly feels like the future.

But the company ran afoul an issue that plagued countless others in this category – the consumer audience for a $2,300 mixed reality headset simply wasn’t there. So it did what any extremely well-funded but struggling company does. Magic Leap pivoted. It suddenly found itself in the business of business, chasing the same enterprise audience that lured in Microsoft and Epson.
Click to expand...

In recent weeks, the company has made more headlines for its fundraising than any specific piece of content or hardware. At the tail end of the year, Saudi Arabia snagged a controlling stake through its public investment firm.

Asked whether recent funding will have a direct impact on Magic Leap’s future roadmap, Diez says, “We’re very lucky to have a very supportive investor base. They are very much in-line with our vision of really focusing on enterprise and making sure they devices can amplify the ability of folks to do really complicated things. Our board and our financers are all on the same page.”
Click to expand...

Log in or Sign up

Magic Leap’s next-generation augmented reality headset is reportedly ‘years away from launch’

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

Log in or Sign up

Magic Leap’s next-generation augmented reality headset is reportedly ‘years away from launch’

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

guest Guest

Useful Searches