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Microsoft’s Surface Hub is now apparently a billion-dollar business

arstechnica.com

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Re: Microsoft’s Surface Hub is now apparently a billion-dollar business

#51

Post by Girlang »

paulcole wrote: post #32
hodder wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rapid depreciation isn't necessarily a bad thing for business. iPhones rapidly depreciate, and iPhones are pretty much the biggest business on earth.

> iPhones rapidly depreciate I've never heard this before-- and in fact most people seem to say the opposite. Just looked on eBay and according to recent sold listings, as of the past few days a 5 could easily bring $100-150 depending on configuration. That's a 4+ year old phone.

YC Hacker News: Your Source for Apple Apologetics!

Re: Microsoft’s Surface Hub is now apparently a billion-dollar business

#52

Post by dom0 »

btbuildem wrote: post #34

I saw the prototype in Redmond over a decade ago, back then it was in the form of a coffee table -- very impressive at the time, but no clear business strategy. In technology terms, this is a glacial age! I find it amazing they were able to persist and refine the technology into a successful product. Kudos!

Doesn't look to me like it's very related to the PixelSense.

Re: Microsoft’s Surface Hub is now apparently a billion-dollar business

#53

Post by Girlang »

chiph wrote: post #3

I'm surprised by this as well, but I wonder how many of them were bought as "trophy" purchases, put on display in the lobby and the CEO's office.

"It Can't Be good! It's from Microsoft, not Tesla or Apple!" -- the wackos on Hacker News.

Re: Microsoft’s Surface Hub is now apparently a billion-dollar business

#54

Post by gempir »

How good is the remote audio and video quality? Is it on skype level?

Skype sucks in audio and video quality and those are really important to my company.

We have a solution from Cisco which had excellent video and audio quality sadly it's just a Tv that can call another Cisco TV and share the screen including a very good webcam. No whiteboard features or something like that, no touchscreen. Except the small tablet to control the thing

Re: Microsoft’s Surface Hub is now apparently a billion-dollar business

#55

Post by dom0 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #46
jmisavage wrote: post #6

Really surprised by the specs and cost of this thing compared to what's out there. Might be the reason Google is making their Jamboard.

People aren't buying specs, they're buying an integrated experience. You can definitely reproduce the spec sheet for less money, but you cannot trivially reproduce the HUI or the research that went into it. It is the interface which is the USP of this product, not the hardware. The Jamboard may be superior but the Jamboard doesn't exist as an actual product. We have no final demos, no release date (except "2017"), no…

> The Jamboard may be superior but the Jamboard doesn't exist as an actual product. We have no final demos, no release date (except "2017"), no specs, and no prices. When the Jamboard ships, only then can we draw decent comparisons.

Yeah, but it's Google. It feels like at least half their products that are announced with big fanfare either are never released, or released and then scrapped after just a couple years (Code, Wave, Code Search, ...).

Re: Microsoft’s Surface Hub is now apparently a billion-dollar business

#56

Post by tim333 »

mxuribe wrote: post #14

It doesn't surprise me that Microsoft is in this space, and that they're doing well. But who would have thought this was a billion dollar business? I figured that the conference room's tech begins to rapidly depreciate almost immediately after installation; but maybe this is something different.

Playing accountant here you might depreciate the thing over 4 years so $2000 cost per year. Against that the occupants of the conference room are likely costing > $1m a year in wage costs so you don't need a huge boost in productivity to make it worth it.

Re: Microsoft’s Surface Hub is now apparently a billion-dollar business

#59

Post by mipmap04 »

Analemma_ wrote: post #8
alva wrote: post #2

Very impressive entrance into what I thought would have been a well mature market by this point.

If Microsoft has managed to make it "just work" (I don't know if they have, but that was the pitch IIRC), then I can understand the enthusiasm. Most of the existing solutions have all the features you need, but fall on their face in the case of reliability and ease of just setting up a meeting. Being able to say "no more 10 minute scrambles at the beginning of meetings to get the tech working" is probably worth a lot…

Speaking of falling flat with this domain of tech, I always felt that way about those Epson smart projectors where you had to use the special battery powered styluses to interact with it. No one ever used them because it was such a hassle to configure for relatively low (sometimes negative) productivity gains. Comparatively, I found the Surface Hubs to be easy enough that any additional effort needed to get up and running is offset by the productivity gains.

Re: Microsoft’s Surface Hub is now apparently a billion-dollar business

#60

Post by heywire »

ape4 wrote: post #57

If it really saves travel then its worth something. I wonder how often its it doing an update when you want to conference.

Based on anecdotal stories about Windows 10 updating in the middle of gamers' live streams, I can just imagine the frustration of conferencing with an important client when BAM! Windows is applying updates, 1 of 198.
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