William Stillwell, a long-time Microsoft veteran who announced that he was leaving the company in early August, has now settled into a new position. Stillwell is now at Facebook, working with the Reality Labs team.
Stillwell announced his career change on Facebook, noting that he’ll be working on augmented and virtual reality products. This is a lateral move for him, as he was the principal program manager for mixed reality at Microsoft before he left.
Big day today. As much as I’ve been enjoying the time off, idle hands aren’t my style.
So, excited to say I’ve accepted a new role and am joining the Facebook Reality Labs team! Can’t wait to get started and help build the future of AR/VR— Wall of Bill 🏒🥅 (@wcstillwell) August 31, 2020
Facebook Reality Labs is the new branding for Oculus, the company behind numerous VR products. The company is currently gearing up for Facebook Connect on September 16. This is part of a wider rebranding that now requires Oculus users to log into Facebook to use their devices.
Stillwell moved to the Xbox team in 2012, having worked across numerous other Microsoft departments before that. He was involved in the Xbox One’s accessibility features, as well as the backwards compatibility program and Project xCloud.
It might be a while before we get to see the specific fruits of Stillwell’s efforts–AR and VR development takes time.
Xbox, meanwhile, is set to release the Xbox Series X later this year, and according to Phil Spencer they’re not seriously looking into VR right now–which might explain why Stillwell is with Facebook now. You can pre-order the console now.
