Back in 2015, Microsoft acquired Mobile Data Labs, creator of the popular MileIQ app. The Mobile Data Labs team continued to build and offer mobile productivity solutions including the 1.0 versions of the Family Safety apps for iOS and Android. In 2017, this team was called Modern Life Experiences (MLX) and it was involved in researching and developing customer-focused projects including Money in Excel. In 2021, MileIQ became an independent company under the name of MileIQ LLC and Microsoft removed the MileIQ benefits from its subscription offerings.
Yesterday, Microsoft announced layoffs affecting the Modern Life Experiences (MLX) team. It should not come as a surprise for anyone who is following Microsoft since most of the products that came from MLX team was not well received by customers. As already mentioned earlier in the article, MileIQ is no longer part of Microsoft. Microsoft has recently announced that Money in Excel will no longer be supported from June 30, 2023. Once the support ends on June 30, 2023, you will no longer be able to connect to a new financial account or reconnect to an existing financial account.
Family Safety is the only active product under development by MLX team. We are not sure whether these layoffs will affect the Family Safety product development or not.
“As we manage through this period, we will continue to invest in future growth while maintaining intense focus on operational excellence and execution discipline.” – Amy Hood, CFO, Microsoft.
Microsoft has informed the affected employees to find a suitable role within Microsoft or leave the organization within 60 days.
