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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

#121

Post by jamiesonbecker »

xzel wrote: post #76
agumonkey wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

So you're saying this is an Apple product from the Steve Jobs era, but with a surprising nameplate? ;)

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

#123

Post by ebrewste »

We've got on here and I was surprised how much time I (not in IT, but sit near the Surface Hub) got wrangled into helping IT support this thing. The problem seems to stem from it being a phone underneath, in the OS (error messages will occasionally mention this). IT has trouble wrapping their head around that it is not a regular Surface, which they have rolled out boat loads of, successfully.

In addition, you can't really install anything on it, so it's tough / impossible to meet automated compliance checking (AV in place, etc.).

I guess this is really an IT group not trying hard to support it, but it was an eye opener to see the round peg / square hole thing going on.

Having said that, it's a nice whiteboard / Skype appliance. Nobody mentions the stand. It's built like a tank and finished really cleanly. Also would be nice if it weighed less. Smaller people really have to lean into it to move it.

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

#124

Post by robotresearcher »

lnanek2 wrote: post #115

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…

This is horribly true. VGA is still the most-likely-to-work interface for presentations. Which is pretty funny when you consider the elaborate signal path including analog on a wire. Must be getting on for 30 years in standard use.

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

#125

Post by squeaky-clean »

agumonkey wrote: post #82
phaed wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before there was nothing this integrated, you really see the power towards the end of the video there. Where you see people being dialed in to help tackle whatever was on the screen there. Imagine three teams in different locations all collaborating around the same set of drafts, stake holders being called in from all over the place for their input. It creates a real-time flow of information that was just not possibl…

Do you have a direct url to the video, I dug a few webpage deep but found nothing except html galleries.

It's the "Watch Video" link in the URl shared above. 45 seconds in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRLDRQePY1o

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

#126

Post by draw_down »

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…

I know, it drives me nuts when people start joking about it too. Like it isn't funny, it happens every single damn meeting, it's a waste of time and incredibly tedious.

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

#127

Post by squeaky-clean »

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.

> I'm just trying to get a picture of what was the setup before.

The setup before was Skyping with a spare laptop or smart TV, and often having to call each other on cell phones because the service isn't working.

There's huge value to good integration. It doesn't matter if the specs don't compete to building your own with a projector, computer, custom webcam. Because no one else has actually built it, and if you do assemble it yourself, do you want your org coming to you for troubleshooting constantly? Are you going to build it for every company you want to chat with remotely?

In the old HN thread where Dropbox was announced, you see a lot of the same sentiment. "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by..."

But the benefit isn't just having your own smart whiteboard. It's having a smart whiteboard that plays well with people who aren't able to build one themselves, and plays well with other services.

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

#128

Post by heywire »

keithpeter wrote: post #87
heywire wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. I wish the large corporation I work for would do this.

In the fairly small organisation (1000+ screens in two sites) I work in the PCs switch themselves on overnight and do the updates then. I gather the updates are pushed from a server after being tested by the IT support chaps.

That is certainly ideal. Unfortunately, many (maybe even most) of the machines here are laptops which are taken home each night. I could probably overlook the Windows updates if it weren't for the noon full-disk virus scan every day, but that's a topic for another day :)

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

#129

Post by agumonkey »

squeaky-clean wrote: post #125
agumonkey wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a direct url to the video, I dug a few webpage deep but found nothing except html galleries.

It's the "Watch Video" link in the URl shared above. 45 seconds in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRLDRQePY1o

Ok, internationalization changed something, I didn't have anything related to video even in another language. Thanks.

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

#130

Post by dsg42 »

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!

I'm pretty sure these came out of the Perceptive Pixel acquisition back in 2012. Microsoft bought a company built giant monitors with powerful touch capabilities. Not the most high profile of acquisitions, but it definitely set them off in this direction.
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