Zuckerberg Retreats: Facebook Scales Back Ambitious Hardware Plans

Facebook reportedly plans to stop developing the consumer versions of its Portal video-calling smart home device and pivot to focus on business-oriented solutions such as conference-calling. The decision marks another stumble by Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire, which has put a hiring freeze in place for many divisions.

The Verge reports that Facebook plans to stop making consumer versions of its Portal video-calling smart home device, instead pivoting the product to focus on business uses such as conference-calling. The change comes as Facebook begins to reassess its hardware plans as investors continue to worry about the billions of dollars that the company is spending on projects that have yet to become profitable.

Facebook released its first Portal devices in 2018, two displays that were planned to act as video calling stations, also supporting apps such as Spotify and streaming content from the Food Network. The displays, however, had limited functionality and their connection to Facebook which has dealt with a number of privacy scandals in recent years did not add to consumer trust when attempting to pitch them an always-on in-home Facebook camera.

Facebook has released new versions of its Portal devices, including a portable Portal Go device, but the lineup failed to capture consumer interest. The research firm IDC estimates that Facebook shipped 800,000 Portal devices in 2021, less than one percent of the global smart speaker home assistant market. Currently, Facebook sells four Portal products including a $99 TV-linked camera and a $349 smart display.

Breitbart News has reported on Facebook’s recent troubles, including a hiring freeze:

Due to “slower revenue growth than anticipated,” Facebook is implementing a company-wide hiring freeze and doesn’t intend to meet hiring goals set at the start of the year. According to the memo, the company’s problems are due to the Apple privacy changes, the war in Ukraine, and the “general macroeconomic environment.”

The company is reportedly no longer hiring for certain engineering roles and is implementing a pause on the hiring of recruiters and low-level data scientists. Many employees have begun to fear that layoffs are coming soon, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an internal all-hands meeting last week that job cuts are not being planned.

“I can’t sit here and make a permanent ongoing promise that as things shift that we won’t have to reconsider that,” Zuckerberg said. “But what I can tell you is that as of where we sit today, our expectation is not that we’re going to have to do that. And instead, basically what we’re doing is we’re dialing growth to the levels that we think are going to be manageable over time.”

Read more at the Verge here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com