
Microsoft’s Surface Hub is now apparently a billion-dollar business - Tomte
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/12/microsofts-surface-hub-sales-surprisingly-strong-its-a-huge-hardware-hit/
======
xzel
I've been using one at work for a while now and I love them, which to me was a
huge suprise. Its a product that finally got almost everything right when it
comes to a digital whiteboard. And yes to another point that was raised here
certainly integration with Mircosoft services was a plus. Its great to have a
computer interface that is remote on half the board and white board interface
on the other. You can mock up while you have the specs inches away from your
face on a huge screen so everyone in the room can read and interact. The skype
integration kills it as well; there's been a number of times I've seen teams
huddled around the board mocking things up with one or two people remote.

~~~
brazzledazzle
Can you do remote collaborative whiteboarding? I'm looking at this for either
having a Hub at each end or a Hub at one end and a tablet at another. Trying
to find a way to bring geographically distributed team members (virtually)
closer together.

~~~
paulus_magnus2
I tried my luck in this space but couldn't get it off the ground

It's fully functional but lacks polish.

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.writelive](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.writelive)

Small showcase:

\- vector graphics/drawings created by freehand / writing [http://write-
live.com/d/dba21681-8d3f-4fbe-8b4b-e5c1983df934](http://write-
live.com/d/dba21681-8d3f-4fbe-8b4b-e5c1983df934)

\- handles more complex drawings: (give it time to load) [http://write-
live.com/d/7fce10bb-bc39-43d4-a7f1-6bd0d60b9550](http://write-
live.com/d/7fce10bb-bc39-43d4-a7f1-6bd0d60b9550) [http://write-
live.com/d/8f9b7846-a7b9-4e5c-b704-dad9aa87d14e](http://write-
live.com/d/8f9b7846-a7b9-4e5c-b704-dad9aa87d14e)

\- unlimited* levels of zoom [http://docs.write-
live.com/WriteliveServer/webview.html?d=34...](http://docs.write-
live.com/WriteliveServer/webview.html?d=3483c3de-b329-4af1-97d7-2d7f27d96ad1)

\- Drawings are stored in the cloud, and can be accessed by multiple devices
simultaneously: co-drawing, draw on a tablet, view on tablet / web
[http://write-live.com/d/538254c5-7d31-41f2-83bb-bcd0a7cee7ab](http://write-
live.com/d/538254c5-7d31-41f2-83bb-bcd0a7cee7ab)

~~~
devopsproject
This is pretty cool

------
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.

~~~
rubicon33
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.

~~~
carlob
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.

~~~
jamiesonbecker
+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.

~~~
gkop
I hate their bus ads in SF, but the product rocks. I requested a Debian
Stretch package and they made one for me the next day.

------
pippy
Microsoft is killing it in this space because current conferencing technology
is flat out horrible.

Despite the fact we have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
conferencing technology at my work, I'll regularly see twenty minutes wasted
at the start of a meeting with someone bumbling around with a mix match of
DisplayPort, thunderbolts, HDMIs and VGAs. Then the software headaches of
having to install some sort of client software, create an account and find the
person.

The icing on the cake was a sales rep from Microsoft who invited us to a
conference using third party software that required Silverlight and MSIE 10,
and our Windows machine was too new.

It's great something is being done in this space, but $19,999 for a problem
Microsoft is largely responsible for feels like extortion.

------
mxuribe
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.

~~~
tim333
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.

~~~
iheartmemcache
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 branch's counterparts and 90 minutes
of their time in salary is going to run about the same.

Microsoft is playing at the integration game. The Surface Hub is a knock-out,
they gave it a decent whirl at the Surface Pro 4 (honestly, it's the best far
note-taking device on the market IMO simply because the PixelSense display[1]
is so stylus friendly - writing on it is nearly like writing on paper), and
their very very crummy phone apparently is going to run native Win10 binaries
on the new 4-core ARMs so they can leverage all those previous apps and throw
them into the ecosystem.

[1][http://www.anandtech.com/show/9767/microsoft-surface-
book-20...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9767/microsoft-surface-
book-2015-review/6)

~~~
youdontknowtho
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.

------
youdontknowtho
If it solves the problem with every meeting where the first ten minutes are
spent trying to get the screen setup and the conference line open...it should
make a gazillion dollars. Every meeting, every time...How does this work?
Which remote? Is the projector even on? Can you see my screen? Which connector
do I use?

It's painful.

~~~
NolF
Do people not set up the room 15 minutes before the session starts just to
sort out those kinds of issues? That way it's only 15 man-minutes rather than
15*n man-minutes. Seems unprofessional.

~~~
threeseed
Sorry but do you actually work in a real life company ?

Nobody is coming 15 minutes early to a meeting. That's unheard of in all of
the enterprises I've worked.

And with there being more and more meetings often you are literally running
from one room to another.

~~~
NolF
I work for a very large organisation. I book rooms 15-30 minutes before my
meetings start time and depending on what it is rock up then or 15 minutes
early. I use the time to set up, manage any glitches, and then make any last
minute preparations such as preparing handout material, water, etc...
Sometimes I get 5 minutes of rest and that's nice too a busy schedule. Then
people start rocking up and you build rapport with them until it's start time.

Coming prepared has saved me far more time that rocking up just on time and
then trying to set it up only for windows to update. People also learn that my
meetings matter because they have a purpose and we get right on it, saving up
on people showing late etc...

Investing those 15 minutes of my time really goes a long way for everyone else
which benefits me too.

~~~
TheGrumpyBrit
You're lucky. In my building, you're lucky if you can find an available slot
long enough to accommodate your meeting. Finding a slot long enough to book 15
minutes before would be near unheard of.

Then there's the perception thing. 20 people twiddling their thumbs while a
meeting is set up is totally acceptable, but a single person monopolising a
meeting room just to mess about with a laptop? Rude.

We're pretty impressed with our surface hub. As others have said, it "just
works". The twin cameras are pretty good at picking up who's speaking and
following them if they move around, and even though it's really not doing
anything spectacular, it does it well and has that all-important "fancy new
technology" feel that exec's love.

------
btbuildem
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!

~~~
dom0
Doesn't look to me like it's very related to the PixelSense.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Careful, Surface is now a brand of various computers, PixelSense was the old
Surface Table with a display where pixels included cameras, but is now used to
describe the new Surface's screen. So let's summarize:

* old Surface: a table.

* new Surface: a brand that started out with tablets but now includes a convertible laptop, a desktop, and a conference room computer.

* old PixelSense: a renamed old Surface with new fancy (very cool) display technology that includes optical sensing pixels, but seems defunct ATM.

* new PixelSense: the screen of a new Surface (high resolution, capacitive touch, stylus).

(disclaimer: used to work for Microsoft but with no inside knowledge)

~~~
shmed
PixelSense is a company that Microsoft acquired a couple years ago. It's
unrelated to the original "surface" technology they showcased previously (the
big coffee table you are talking about), other than sharing the same name.
Surface is now just the branding of their whole series of first party touch
enabled devices (surface pro, surface studio, surface book, surface hub)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
That was the case a few years ago, but it is no longer the case now. See:

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-
stud...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-
studio/innovation)

And compare to:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PixelSense](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_PixelSense)

Two totally different things.

------
jmisavage
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.

~~~
Someone1234
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 specs,
and no prices. When the Jamboard ships, only then can we draw decent
comparisons.

~~~
dom0
> 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, ...).

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

~~~
jknoepfler
not hyping vaporware would be a start

------
aedron
This could be a great launch point for a new generation of (very) smart TVs.
Combined with what Microsoft is doing with HoloLens, they seem to be very well
positioned for the future of communication devices.

------
GuiA
The "board" part of Weiser's original "pads, tabs, and boards" vision [0]
always made logical sense, but for some reason never realized itself. I'm a
bigger fan of the tabletop form factor myself (see for example the original
"surface"). It'll be interesting to see how this grows.

 _> to boot, it's a piece of hardware that it got right even in version one_

Except it's not version one; see the surface and surface 2 before the current
surface :)

[0]
[http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/SciAmDraft3.html](http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/SciAmDraft3.html)

~~~
jimbokun
That is an outstanding work of futurology! It gets a lot right, and the parts
they get wrong are wrong for interesting and fascinating reasons.

Comes really close to forecasting the smart phone, but instead of an intensely
personal device, they envision very similar devices that are shared and spread
out through the environment. Surface Hub seems to have struck a nerve for the
"shared environment" paradigm, wonder if there are still other opportunities
in the "pads and tabs" paradigms. What could be done with "virtual post it
notes", for example, whose content is always kept up to date, and placed in
the context where they are most relevant?

~~~
Sanddancer
Absolutely, though the biggest problems are the walled gardens. Personal pads
are a thing -- the various assistants from google, ms, and apple will already
do things like take reminders in the form of "remind me to x at y time" or
"remind me to z when I'm at w". However, sharing those notes in a reasonable
way still isn't a thing as far as I can tell.

------
gressquel
I recently changed job. When I was at the interview for the new job (gonna
start there in january) they had surface hubs on all meeting rooms. And this
is in Norway so the reach is great!

~~~
digi_owl
Well Microsoft's market penetration in Norway is massive. To the point that if
you see someone with a Mac you can basically claim him to work in media
production and be right 99,9% of the time.

------
ape4
If it really saves travel then its worth something. I wonder how often its it
doing an update when you want to conference.

~~~
heywire
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.

~~~
doikor
That is why corporations have the ability to defer updates if they want to.
Personally I've found that shutting your PC at the end of the workday means
the updates will always get installed then and not during the day.

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

~~~
keithpeter
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.

~~~
heywire
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 :)

~~~
brazzledazzle
Noon full-disk virus scan even once a week is a great way to alienate your
user base. If your enterprise AV doesn't support "start at a scheduled time or
if sleeping/off start upon next wake/power on" then you need a new enterprise
AV suite. If not that at least temporary deferment.

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

~~~
Analemma_
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.

~~~
madenine
They do kinda "just work". Less valuable if you'r not on 0365/Skype for
Business, but it's a Microsoft product so that makes sense.

------
ghuntley
Have two in our office's. They are great. 365 integration, Skype and the
whiteboard are fantastic.

------
AVobserver
The Microsoft Hub is fine and dandy... but it is very limiting in it's ability
to integrate with any and all meeting participants. It's great if everyone all
worked off Microsoft products, but they do not.

Example: I am in an office where 90+% of people work with Macs and iOS
products. The integration between those two is not seamless by any make or
measure. I would rather have a product that worked between the two than a
single product trying to mold it's way into the entire space.

~~~
swiley
iOS seems to actively avoid integration with anything.

------
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

~~~
Maarten88
This uses Skype for Business, formerly Lync, which is different tech than
Skype-the-consumer-app. Skype for Business connects though your own network
infrastructure, and uses your own servers (or Office 365 hosted ones). Quality
is about as good as it gets - depending on the latency and bandwidth of your
network of course.

------
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.

------
chiph
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.

~~~
dagw
"The average Surface Hub customer is buying about 50 devices for each
deployment...(and) One (unnamed) car manufacturer bought 1,500 of the thing"

Sounds like people are actually rolling them out through all their conference
rooms

~~~
gchadwick
I wonder if the car manufacturer wants them for show rooms?

I could imagine a surface hub could make a very fancy virtual catalogue for
going through the manufacturers full range of models, trim levels and options
for instance. Maybe something a higher-end brand would be interested in (after
all such dealerships often abound with fancy furniture for customers)?

~~~
eitally
But you could do this much cheaper with a cheap Windows or ChromeOS device
connected to a touch display. Paying $8000+ would be completely unreasonable.

~~~
slantyyz
Because the Surface Hub is an integrated device, there are savings in:

* purchase research - deciding what parts to buy and making sure they'll all work out of the box and that the computer is fast enough to support what people will be doing with it

* physical setup - hooking up those external PCs and peripherals and making sure they are all working like an appliance so that you don't need an IT person "turn it on" for the salesperson before every meeting, etc.

* support - if something goes wrong, you're talking to Microsoft, without figuring out which part is broken and then figuring out who to call

Considering a decent 1080p 55" touch display is probably going to run you
around $3K (and it doesn't have active pen support), I'm not sure $9K is that
unreasonable for a business, especially if it stays in operation for five
years or more.

\-- edit: i realized the parent was responding to the to car showrooms comment
and not boardrooms after the fact - but left the post here for the context of
boardrooms

------
hubert123
I'm happy for Microsoft, I get the feeling that they are really trying now and
it is always a pleasure to see strong innovations and competition.

------
toyg
This spells trouble for Cisco and friends. MS can use the Hub as a foothold
into your phone system, and BAM! Out go all those expensive, obscure and
clunky Cisco voip systems, replaced with some MS cloud-based solution that is
100x cheaper and integrates with Skype and LinkedIn.

------
mizzao
The integration with OneNote is quite killer as well - you can plug in your
laptop, draw as much as you want (collaboratively) on an infinitely-scrolling
whiteboard, and then have all the notes from the meeting saved, digitized, and
searchable, and shared with all participants.

~~~
komali2
OneNote plus a surface pro 3 were game changing for me in school. All of my
notes digitized and accessible for study from my phone or whatever, an
infinite whiteboard, a tablet + stylus that _actually_ let me take written
notes. They have a writing-to-text feature as well that unfortunately doesn't
work too well, but we can't have everything I suppose. That feature requires
an Office subscription though. Meh.

------
DavidWanjiru
Does anyone have a link to the promo video of the original Surface, the table
in a restaurant version? It's soundtrack had a song I loved, can't remember
the artist, and the version was different from the studio version.

~~~
soylentcola
Is it this video?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZmaZK435_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZmaZK435_8)

Google Assistant tells me the song is "Out of Time" by Levitation (but I
didn't click the track to listen so it may be wrong).

~~~
DavidWanjiru
No, not this one. The one I'm talking about had people talking about the
product and how you could use it. The part with the song I'm talking about was
a food restaurant setting (as opposed to a bar setting)

Edit: The one I have in mind was more like this one in terms of setting -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRU3NemA95k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRU3NemA95k)

------
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.

~~~
phatfish
Humm, maybe depends on which Chrome Box you choose. In my experience they work
very well, only needing a reboot every now and then.

The main issue is people not taking care of equipment in shared spaces like
meeting rooms. The technology is usually the least of your problems.

------
protomyth
Considering how many "smart boards" our little community college buys, if it
works at all well, I can see how it would be a big seller in the category.

~~~
xemoka
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.

~~~
protomyth
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.

~~~
xemoka
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.

~~~
protomyth
All true, but I'm stuck until I have a budget and a better solution. I might
give Microsoft a try on the next go around.

~~~
xemoka
Yeah, I'll certainly be seeing if we can try these if/when we get some funding
for another "Smart" brand product.

------
fergie
Is it actually a product people love or just a product companies buy? The
Skype integration seems like a bit of a red flag.

~~~
sithadmin
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.

~~~
sjclemmy
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.

~~~
tombrossman
The seamless redirect after install is a nice touch. However the "receive link
in email for software/plugin download to install so you can do this important
thing" harkens back to earlier times and is the classic malware infection
scenario. I guess it still works because enough people still do it.

------
tn13
Meetings and printing/scanning are two areas where I lose so much time doing
nothing. Now only if someone made printing scanning far more simpler and
glitch free.

------
revjx
We have a few at work in our new building, I really love them. They're very
nice to write on, very responsive and fast, and you can wheel them around -
brilliant.

------
freyr
Wow, companies are spending on average between $450k to $1M per deployment on
these things. You don't need too many customers to reach $1B at that price.

------
antoniuschan99
When I was working on www.kokonaut.com in 2012, my vision for it was a mix
between Slack and Surface Hub. The closest thing I've seen was Bluescape.

------
SeanDav
How does the Whiteboard work on this and is it effective?

------
AVobserver
My company is using DiplayTen for our meeting rooms. They are partnered with
Zoom Communications and they are able to seamlessly integrate both PC and Mac
users as they join into Zoom Rooms.

Also meeting room participants can effortlessly participate using a PC/Mac
dongle to share content to the boards wirelessly.

The Hub may be a shiny new Cadillac but like them, require constant
professional maintenance. The DisplayTen board we use was out of the box and
set up in a matter of minutes with updates done in a simple and timely matter.

------
dmix
Didn't they try to offer something similar with the Xbox One? That may have
mostly been targeted at consumers though.

~~~
blakeyrat
The Xbox One is a combination of game console and DVR. It has no features
designed specifically for workplace conferences, but of course there are tons
of apps so it's possible some workplaces are using it that way. In between
rounds of Call of Duty.

------
digi_owl
I would not be so surprised. MS have, beyond playing dirty, been good at
coming up with tools for the office sphere.

------
Animats
Plus, it lets Microsoft eavesdrop on business meetings worldwide.

------
geobourazanas
This is much much better and cheaper
[https://www.acrossio.com](https://www.acrossio.com)

~~~
Sanddancer
Totally different. That is a web-based chat app. MS is selling a large monitor
which has chat, whiteboarding, etc, which doesn't depend on a third-party
server to run. If that company goes under a year from now, you have to find
another app, retrain everyone to use it, etc. Plus, it doesn't have any
hardware, so you still need to set up cameras, microphones, fuss with them if
things don't work right, etc. That's what MS is selling, something that's plug
and play.

~~~
eyeonai
If you look closer, it's not a chat app.

It actually records all meetings or meaningful team interactions (video
mainly) and it allows people to bookmark the moments and put context. After
the end of the meeting, all bookmarks, tasks etc are saved and you can share
important points with people that could not be there.

The most amazing thing is that you can mention people with permalinks that get
you in the exact time something was said.

Now, can it run on a hardware like Microsoft of whatever? YES

but the innovation is in the concept of LIVING MEETINGS that they live after
their end, since people can go in and socially enlive them :)

------
wwwccd
We are using a 70 inch from DisplayTen, bundle with Zoom Video conferencing,
it's much better than the skype for business, especially when we have slow
internet in our office. The whiteboard and wireless sharing are great, Zoom is
fantastic.

------
ebbv
Really? We're calling it a "hit" already? How many have they sold? I don't
know anyone who has one, and most people I know don't even know it exists.

Once again Peter Bright being the ultimate Microsoft shill. (I knew this was
him before even clicking on the article just from the headline.)

~~~
theobon
2000 customers, average of 50 devices per customer, average of $15000 per
devices

2000 * 50 * $15000 = $1.5 billion

I think that objectively counts as a hit...

------
wwwccd
We are using DisplayTen for our meeting rooms, bundle with Zoom video
conferencing, which works better than skype for business when slow internet in
our office. The Wireless sharing dongle is the killer app.

------
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.

