Oculus, the virtual reality unit of Facebook, has some big changes underway as the company will try to accelerate its market speed and scale by establishing new groups dedicated to PC and mobile VR.
As part of the shift, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe will be stepping aside to head up the PC VR division, with Jon Thomason, an exec late of Amazon, Qualcomm and Microsoft who joined Oculus in August, to take the helm of the mobile VR group.
Iribe, Thomason and Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer will work together to find a new leader to manage the Oculus teams, Iribe explained Tuesday in this blog post.
“Changing the world on that scale has required us to also scale Oculus at warp speed. With our growth and product strategy, we’ve decided to establish new PC and mobile VR groups to be more focused, strengthen development and accelerate our roadmap,” Iribe said, noting that Facebook remains “committed to working on VR for the long term.”
Oculus’s PC business has focused on the Oculus Rift. On the mobile end, its technology has been powering the Samsung Gear VR headset.
Facebook has also announced plans to build a standalone VR platform, but has not said much about the anticipated product timing.
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Oculus’s new strategy emerges as the VR sector becomes increasingly competitive following this year’s debut of the HTC Vive and Daydream View, Google’s new mobile VR headset/controller combo that works with select Android-based smartphones.
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“As we’ve grown, I really missed the deep, day-to-day involvement in building a brand new product on the leading edge of technology,” Iribe said of his decision to lead the PC VR division of Oculus.
