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Introducing Surface Hub 2

microsoft.com

21–30 of 129 posts

Re: Introducing Surface Hub 2

#21
Wouldn't having the camera at the top of such a large screen (in portrait as demo-ed in the video) exacerbate the lack of eye content in a video call? If it's noticeable on a laptop sized screen I can't imagine how off-putting it would be on this.

Re: Introducing Surface Hub 2

#22
post #2

I love such devices. However, similiar to smartphones they depend so much on the software, and Microsoft is not too known for interoperability. How can my Linux and Mac OS X colleagues participate and contribute in the meetings? Such tools need open platforms and communities which build them. I'm especially concerned because Microsoft stopped the support for a native Linux Skype client.

I can't say anything about this new system. But I think in general Microsoft isn't that bad for cross-platform nowadays. On MacOS I have Office, Skype, Onedrive, etc. And I can access my documents on phones via mobile clients. The tools are all weaker than the Windows versions, but I think they mostly get the job done and are getting better over time. Can't comment on pure Linux support, but would understand if it's…

I'd be greatly surprised if there's any Linux support at all. Microsoft supports macOS, iOS, and Android these days not because they care about interoperability, but because Microsoft needs users on these platforms. If Microsoft cared about interop. for the sake of anyone except Microsoft, OOXML wouldn't be crap, and their office suite wouldn't be crippling ODF files on save.

Microsoft has a much longer (and quite colourful) history of not-supporting and breaking interop.

Re: Introducing Surface Hub 2

#23
post #16

The thing Microsoft seems to get is that you can keep grinding on these devices even if they aren't smash hits. Eventually people like me start to consider them a viable alternative because we know they aren't going to give up on them like Google.

Zune. Surface RT. Kinect. Windows Phone. Band. Just naming some things that I've personally purchased and Microsoft no longer supports. They are no better than Google at continuing to support their products.

That's about it, though. All companies discontinue products, but Microsoft keeps them around for a lot longer than most.

Re: Introducing Surface Hub 2

#24
post #8

Anyone have a guess what it costs to tile 4 of those 4K multi-touch displays like shown in the video? That would make a heck of a desktop.

Indeed. The current 55" 1080p Surface Hub is $10-12K.

The image staying still as the screen rotates is gimmicky but being able easily to move and spread content between multiple Surface Hubs could be really useful.

Re: Introducing Surface Hub 2

#25
post #16

The thing Microsoft seems to get is that you can keep grinding on these devices even if they aren't smash hits. Eventually people like me start to consider them a viable alternative because we know they aren't going to give up on them like Google.

Zune. Surface RT. Kinect. Windows Phone. Band. Just naming some things that I've personally purchased and Microsoft no longer supports. They are no better than Google at continuing to support their products.

Zune: introduced 2006; discontinued: 2012; support ended 2015 (9 years)

Surface RT: introduced: 2012; Discontinued: 2013; Windows support ends 2023 (11 years)

Kinect: introduced 2010; discontinued: 2015 for windows; 2017 for xbox; still supported (no date announced AFAICT)

Windows phone: introduced: 2010; last release 2015; windows phone os support ended 2017 (7 years)

Band: introduced 2014; discontinued 2016; still supported (no date announced AFAICT)

They gave up on band and RT pretty quickly... but they still supported those users.. a 2012 laptop will probably be dead by the time Windows RT support ends.

Just for comparison.. google is only 20 years old. Android is only 10 years old. Which products of Google's are you thinking of that failed and were supported for a decade? When Google Reader died, users got 3 1/2 months warning. Which Microsoft product got 3 1/2 months warning before ending support?

I understand why google has their support policy, and I'm not passing judgement here... but microsoft definitely supports their products longer, and that has a real cost to microsoft, and they deserve some credit for that.

Re: Introducing Surface Hub 2

#27
post #16

The thing Microsoft seems to get is that you can keep grinding on these devices even if they aren't smash hits. Eventually people like me start to consider them a viable alternative because we know they aren't going to give up on them like Google.

Zune. Surface RT. Kinect. Windows Phone. Band. Just naming some things that I've personally purchased and Microsoft no longer supports. They are no better than Google at continuing to support their products.

For a company that has been there for about 40 years, I would say that this list is quite small compared to Google. Google deprecate product way faster, look at the lineup of communication/chat products in the last decade which is bigger than the list you posted.

Re: Introducing Surface Hub 2

#29

I _love_ that Microsoft seems to prefer 3:2 displays over 16:9/16:9 displays! If we get really lucky we might even see 4:3 displays again some day in the future.

4:3 displays are too boxy for mobility, I really think 3:2 should be the new standard, especially for tablets, it's just perfect.

Re: Introducing Surface Hub 2

#30
post #16

The thing Microsoft seems to get is that you can keep grinding on these devices even if they aren't smash hits. Eventually people like me start to consider them a viable alternative because we know they aren't going to give up on them like Google.

Zune. Surface RT. Kinect. Windows Phone. Band. Just naming some things that I've personally purchased and Microsoft no longer supports. They are no better than Google at continuing to support their products.

Zune, Band and Surface RT are still functional with running back-end infrastructure (except for 1st party music purchases on Zune).

Kinect is not dead, it still works on xbox/windows and they released a new enterprise offering just this past month.

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