Insider reported that Microsoft led the team developing hololens augmented reality helmets and Kinect motion controllers for Xbox, and is one of Microsoft's top technical researchers. Alex kipman recently resigned after being accused of verbal abuse and sexual harassment**
Microsoft did not immediately confirm or deny this report, but geekwire has confirmed this through an internal email from Microsoft cloud computing boss Scott Guthrie - "we have jointly decided that now is the right time for him to leave the company to pursue other opportunities". The memo did not mention the allegations and said kipman would stay in office for another two months to help with the transition. In addition, it also reorganized kipman's entire hybrid reality department and joined Panos Panay's windows +The equipment organization gives a detailed description.
According to insider, more than 25 Microsoft employees provided information for an internal report on kipman's suspected misconduct, including an unwelcome touch event and the fact that he was suspected of watching an obscene VR video in front of employees in the office.
Today's report was released after the insider report on May 25. At that time, dozens of employees told the publication about kipman's misconduct. Three employees told insider that they were warned not to leave women alone with kipman. When insider contacted Microsoft at that time, the company did not want to confirm or deny the specific allegations of the executive on female misconduct, but denied kipman's claim that the human resources department personnel started to accompany the meeting.
A former Microsoft executive was very sad about kipman's behavior, and the outbreak of covid-19 actually made things better. "Unfortunately, the best thing that happened was the (new crown) pandemic. Therefore, we never talked to him face to face," the employees said.
Kipman did not respond to insider's repeated requests for comment, and he has not tweeted since May 23.
In February this year, kipmann responded to an earlier report by insider, which said that hololens The Department is in a mess and hololens 3 may have been cancelled. "Don't believe what you see online," kipman said However, insider is not the only media suggesting that the Department has some problems. The Wall Street Journal also reported in January that more than 70 Microsoft employees in the hololens team left the company in 2021, and more than 40 joined meta.
Microsoft is counting on hololens to win the US Army. Although the army ordered up to 120000 IVAS helmets for soldiers, it is reported that the order will bring the company $21.88 billion in revenue within 10 years. However, the army postponed the transaction, and the Pentagon audit was not optimistic about this idea. The inspector general of the Ministry of defense wrote in a report in april2022: "the procurement of IVAS without user approval may result in the waste of up to $21.88 billion of taxpayer funds for the deployment of a system that soldiers may not be willing to use or do not use as planned." However, Guthrie pointed out in his memo that the army did approve an operational test last month.
Regardless of the status of the hololens project, kipman is out.