On June 10th Microsoft announced that Surface Hub, their large screen interactive display device, will be available for ordering on July 1st. There are two models, 55” for $6,999 USD and the statement making 84” model for $19,999. Surface Hub will be available for pre-order on July 1 in 24 markets worldwide, and will begin shipping in September.
Surface Hub is the evolution of the technology Microsoft acquired when they purchased Perceptive Pixel in July 2012. Since that time, Microsoft has been working on ways they could use these large displays to improve the way people collaborate. Last week I had the opportunity to meet with the Surface team and get an overview of the device and discuss the roadmap going forward.
So what is Surface Hub?
At first glance one may think it’s just a large conference room display. However, spend a few minutes with one and you quickly come to understand it is much more. On the hardware side yes it’s a large touch screen, but it also includes microphones, speakers and cameras on each side that come into play as soon as you start collaborating. It’s also a computer, so you don’t need to connect a PC to it in order to run applications.
As attractive as the device is, it’s the software that makes Surface Hub shine. As soon as you touch the screen you can either load an application, or instantly start a Skype for Business meeting. The core of that meeting experience is an infinite canvas whiteboard, allowing people to draw on the screen for brainstorming, event planning, content creation, story telling and hundreds of other scenarios. People not in the room can join the meeting and see what’s happening on the screen in real time. Disappointingly, remote participants currently can only view the whiteboard, they can not add their own markup to it, but that is planned for a future release. The whiteboard is actually a Surface Hub specific extension of Microsoft OneNote, so I’m optimistic that a lot more functionality will be coming to the white boarding experience, as OneNote offers several great note taking and brainstorming features.
The power of this type of immersive collaboration is not limited to simple whiteboards. Below you can see two video where I try out native applications. Here is a video where I work on a PowerPoint presentation, including copy and pasting images from Bing.
The next two videos showcase business partner applications. The first is 3D design software JT2Go from Siemens:
The second is brainstorming application Mura.ly
MyPOV
There are three critical elements Microsoft needs to get right to help keep the Surface Hub out of the conference room hardware graveyard.
1) Ease of Use: The experience needs to be extremely simple. Conference rooms, shared team spaces, executive offices and briefing centers are littered with old equipment like projectors, speaker phones and smart boards that no one uses. In my limited time with the Surface Hub, I found it intuitive and interestingly enough, actually fun. Touching the screen to move things around or using pens to draw (called Inking) felt natural. In just a few minutes I understood how to start applications, join meetings, and create content on screen. I would like to see more onscreen navigational aides that popup and help teach people the basics plus tips and tricks.
2) Partner Ecosystem: It can’t just be a large screen display for slides. As shown above, even before launch Microsoft has been busy working with business partners to make sure several applications are available. Microsoft has a huge business partner ecosystem, and it’s these 3rd party products that will make or break the success of the device.
3) Help People Get Work Done: Collaboration needs to be seamless and amazing. These devices are really designed to allow teams to work together. While the first release does have Skype meeting integration and OneNote whiteboards, there is a lot of room for improvement on the collaboration front. As mentioned above, remote participants need to be able to do more than just view content. I’d like to see a lot more Yammer integration, allowing people to attach conversations to objects anywhere on the screen. I’d like to see Microsoft rethink the entire meetings experience, changing the way people plan and prepare for the meeting, participate while it is going on, and then follow up and take action one the meeting is over. With the massive immersive experience I can picture a variety of ways to drag and drop participants, tasks, emails, attachments, and more to create an effective and entertaining meeting experience.
At $20,000 the Surface Hub seems very reasonable for an office that is updating their conference rooms or modernizing their meeting facilities. Customers need to consider all the hardware the Surface Hub replaces, and then think of the creative scenarios that it can be used for.
At a time where everyone is talking about mobile and wearable devices, what role does an 84” screen play in collaboration? If you’re just wanting to look at some PowerPoint slides that works just fine with everyone staring at their own laptops, tablets or even phones. But when it comes to true collaborative work in product design, engineering, manufacturing, architecture, social media monitoring, or brainstorming and creative content creation… the large screen and it's infinite canvas experience is quite impressive.
Smarter Meeting Rooms
Microsoft is not the only company thinking about the meeting room experience. Telepresence vendors like Avaya, Cisco and IBM are working on their next generation products as well. IBM is going beyond just thinking about how people can collaborate, they are working on ways the room itself can become a “smart" participant in meetings. They call these meeting rooms of the future Cognitive Environments. Below are a few videos about what IBM is working on.