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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

#111

Post by dtemp »

Google's entrant into the Conference Room Tech market is their Chromebox for Meetings. It doesn't do the whiteboarding, but it's an easy and cheap way to put a webcam/speaker/mic into a conference room that integrates well with Google Calendar.

Obviously it makes the most sense for companies with "G Suite" as employees can then use gCal to book conference rooms, set up Hangouts video chats in the rooms, etc.

And Google's product costs one-tenth as much. I know there's no way I'd get a budget to spend $7k/room at my company, given we only spend $500/room for furniture the last time we redid them.

Having an ok experience with them at my company. Occasionally one needs reimaging but overall I forget they are there.

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

#113

Post by carlob »

rubicon33 wrote: post #101
jimbokun wrote: post #93

"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 productiv…

You are not alone. This is a constant source of frustration at our organization as well. Even once everyone is on the Hangout / HighFive/ Slack call... If anyone's internet is less than perfect, the whole experience sucks.

We've been using zoom.us for a few years now and it seems to work pretty well. If your internet is too flaky you can still dial in.

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

#114

Post by Nullabillity »

lucozade wrote: post #44
loudmax wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also known as 'lock-in' in some contexts.

> Also known as 'lock-in' It does increase lock-in of course. I would argue that so many companies are already heavily invested in M$ that this is unlikely to affect relative lock-in hugely. To put it another way, if I'm already in prison and someone buys me a comfy chair, I'm likely to appreciate it.

By that analogy, if you're already in prison then you should be plotting an escape path, not get chummy with the guards.

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

#115

Post by lnanek2 »

Will have to check it out! The company I'm at has more Chrome boxes than rooms, running meetings with Google Hangouts, but everyone hates them. The controllers randomly stop working and only start again if the dongle is unplugged and replugged or the box is rebooted, not to mention tons of other flakey issues the past week or two particularly. Our leadership complains about wasting 5 minutes of every meeting getting the Chrome boxes working.

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

#116

Post by Nullabillity »

sjclemmy wrote: post #70
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.

I totally agree. I got forwarded a skype for business invite this morning for a meeting with Microsoft and I haven't used it before. I clicked on the link followed the instructions, which meant installing a pkg on my mac. The thing that struck me was that after installing the pkg I got taken straight to the conference - I didn't have to go back to the link, put any ID / PIN or anything. It was seamless.

Jitsi Meet beats that hard by not having any package to install in the first place: https://jitsi.org/Projects/JitsiMeet, https://meet.jit.si/

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

#117

Post by pjmlp »

codazoda wrote: post #94
dom0 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is what company partners are for.

For example, my employer got to taste pre-alpha .NET, back in the day.

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

#118

Post by hashhar »

codazoda wrote: post #94
dom0 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This reminds me of a talk by Steve Yegge (an episode of the original old StackOverflow Podcast) where he says that the reverse is true a lot of the time. If you announce something and people find it lacklustre, they won't even care when you release the product even it is amazing.

Similarly if you hype before release and deliver, you will never be able to meet the hype that you set yourself and that will lead to failure.

[1]: http://stackoverflow.blog/2008/10/podcast-25/

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

#119

Post by jamiesonbecker »

carlob wrote: post #113
rubicon33 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not alone. This is a constant source of frustration at our organization as well. Even once everyone is on the Hangout / HighFive/ Slack call... If anyone's internet is less than perfect, the whole experience sucks.

We've been using zoom.us for a few years now and it seems to work pretty well. If your internet is too flaky you can still dial in.

+10. Also has an awesome Linux client that works flawlessly in Ubuntu and Debian, so we can do customer demos (@userify, if it matters) in the Linux+SSH environment that several of the more hard-core people here (including me!) prefer.

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

#120

Post by rch »

jimbokun wrote: post #93

"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 productiv…

Interesting. The only time I've ever had trouble was in a really large room where we had to schedule AV staff to operate everything. Day-to-day conference rooms worked just fine, even with multiple cameras, monitors, touch screens, etc.. This is at multiple companies/industries over the last 6 years (before that there were problems).
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