Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 190 posts

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

#91

Post by youdontknowtho »

iheartmemcache wrote: post #84
tim333 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To put it in perspective, a single Cisco Telepresence device (you typically will need at least two) runs ~30k list (you'll be paying, eh, maybe ~70% depending on your relationship with your distributor). A whole 3200 system will run around ~300k (again, list). A device @ 10k is absolute peanuts. Take eight engineers, a few managers and a C-level and put them into a conference room with your organization's Boulder, CO…

The ARM announcement is targeting what they are calling "cellular laptops" that use 64bit ARM chips in a clam shell form factor. They didn't really announce anything around the phone, but its pretty obvious that something like that will be coming pretty soon.

I really wanted to like the Nokia 1520. The screen was fantastic. Man, it drove me crazy though.

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

#92

Post by jsudhams »

gempir wrote: post #54

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 t…

Cisco has PC based video conference and/or can make the Lync or Skype for business to work with it. So you can call other folks on PC and have the room join as well.

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

#93

Post by jimbokun »

"In a Forrester report commissioned by Microsoft, it's claimed that meetings start more promptly—less faffing about to get remote attendees dialed in or computers hooked up to the projector—saving 15 to 23 minutes per meeting."

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!

Every company I've been at, I've seen this happen over and over and over again, every meeting. I feel like I'm the only one aware of how much time and productivity is killed by this problem.

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

#94

Post by codazoda »

dom0 wrote: post #69
brianwawok wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What should they do to products that dont work? Keep pouring good money in them?

Don't announce stuff you won't release? Like eg. Project Ara

As consumers, we might want this, but it's not a smart idea for companies. Their early announcements are tests to see if there's enough excitement long before the product is ready. If very few people get excited then very few people remember you never finished the thing because no one cared. Google, especially, is looking at these types of metrics early on.

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

#95

Post by emodendroket »

agumonkey wrote: post #81
xzel wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it did anything amazing/revolutionary. At the end of the day its just a giant TV with touch features. The key bit is they got 95% of "it" right, the "it just works" factor is huge. The integration with remote desktop, the feel of writing with the stylus, quality and feel of the plastic hub, skype integration, pulling off white board sessions to email, etc.

Yeah, sorry I didn't mean you oversell anything either. The article and thread mood made me feel this way. I understand the value of an out of the box solution versus a fragile, plug and maybe play in a workplace market. I was just trying to assess the situation.

I mean, it's like GoPros, or whatever. It's not like they invented something new; they just configured existing tech in a convenient way and it turns out to be really popular.

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

#96

Post by BoringCode »

fergie wrote: post #75
sithadmin wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from the crappy mobile app, Skype for Business (formerly Lync - has nothing to do with the consumer version of Skype) is pretty excellent when it's deployed correctly.

Personally I've always found it to be inferior to Hangouts and Facetime.

Maybe, but those can't be deployed on a company's network.

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

#97

Post by agumonkey »

emodendroket wrote: post #95
agumonkey wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, sorry I didn't mean you oversell anything either. The article and thread mood made me feel this way. I understand the value of an out of the box solution versus a fragile, plug and maybe play in a workplace market. I was just trying to assess the situation.

I mean, it's like GoPros, or whatever. It's not like they invented something new; they just configured existing tech in a convenient way and it turns out to be really popular.

True that's what I was trying to understand. The thing is a "Microsoft Surface Hub" feels a lot more mysterious than a gopro which is simple a sturdy waterproof cam package, you quickly get the boundaries on your own.

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

#98

Post by xemoka »

protomyth wrote: post #83
xemoka wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhg, those "smart boards" are terrible. I'm trying to get ours to give up and just buy TVs and projectors. It's amazing what a company can achieve by focusing on education and claiming to be tailor-fit.

The software is terrible, but the ability to draw on the board keeps us from having just a TV / projector. We put up with it because of the added capability.

It's a nice feature, I just see people struggling with it far too often. The software is a huge stumbling point, and the finish on the TV versions really detracts from the benefits of 4k.

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

#99

Post by wjnc »

agumonkey wrote: post #67
phaed wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does that, but it does a lot more too, watch the video: https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-surface-hub

I did watch 2 videos of ~10min. It didn't seem as amazing as I imagined. Most of the features are remote + ink then mail. Nothing that revolutionary. Maybe I missed other demos (I can't find a video on MS website, I used youtube, various sources) I think my comment was too easy to interpret as lazy sarcasm, I'm just trying to get a picture of what was the setup before.

The thing is, as a 10 yr office worker (ouch), the specs might not amaze, but the Works!-part does. The fact that it's integrated means it probably Works, while the earlier mish-mash of MS, Cisco etc left most functions hampering.

We have a great Android based touchscreen in the Office (ok, probably a hundred). But not connected (because security, obviously), with other solutions for VC (they bring another screen, or OCS, almost Skype). Most people just use Paper and phonecam to share. Thats just awful for productivity.

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

#100

Post by WorldMaker »

heywire wrote: post #60
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.

A lot of the anecdotal stories occur because Windows defaults its "don't update during these hours" to the 9-5 business hours and most gamers obviously aren't gaming during 9-5. On the flipside, the 9-5 default should work great for the Hub.
Post reply on HN