Microsoft's Surface Hub Is a 'Hit', Demand Outstrips Supply (petri.com) 67
Microsoft said on Thursday that it has sold over 500 units of the Surface Hubs, a number that apparently "exceeded" the company's initial forecasts. In a statement to Microsoft-centric blog Petri, the company said: "Demand for Surface Hubs is very strong and exceeded initial forecasts. To date, we've shipped to over 500 customers worldwide and that number continues to grow. We are ramping up production to meet this strong demand via our partner reseller channel as soon as possible. Customers are encouraged to speak with their sales representative if interested in ordering Surface Hubs." For a refresh, the Surface Hub is a giant all-in-one Windows 10 computer which retails at a starting price point of $8,999 for the 55-inch model, and goes all the way up to $21,999 for the 84-inch model.
500 customers, not units (Score:4, Informative)
From TFA:
To date, we’ve shipped to over 500 customers worldwide and that number continues to grow
So there were 500 customers, not 500 units they sold.
Re: (Score:3)
thanks for pointing that out, I was wondering at summary, at that price it would be like Honda happy it sold 500 Civics
Re: (Score:2)
nope, with only 500 units so far product would be failure. tens of millions of dollars of revenue would be needed just to cover R&D and manufacturing tool-up
Either way (Score:1)
And that's supposedly a hit?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They've sold more of these than Windows phones and Zunes put together.
At $20,000 each? That's a hit by any measure.
Demand outstrips supply? (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?... [vgcats.com]
More than nothing? (Score:3, Insightful)
If 500 customer far excede expectation, it sounds like they expected to sell absolutely none of these things. Which I can understand why. It seems more like a concept computer than anything made for customer demands.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
We were a customer for such a system several years ago. We bought 100 units. If everyone else does too that's 500000 very special purpose systems being sold which is an epic win in my eyes. Remember this isn't a shit little tablet being discussed here, it's a special purpose office appliance
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
actually the xbone/w kinnect does a decent job at tracking/zooming, sound and lighting....even with groups.
Its actually a pretty decent skype machine.....if you can ignore the vitrol about the kinect....I would seriously recommend it for office skype meetings...plus its much cheaper than this (not to mention it can do pretty much do the same stuff and its also "plug and play").
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, five hundred of either is hardly enough business volume to justify being unable to fulfill demand. The thing isn't exactly new and cutting-edge technology
Just because a product is proven technology doesn't grant unlimited manufacturing capacity.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe he talks to his computers, and gets to know them as a machine, and doesn't just use them for video games and toss them out like yesterday's jam when he's tired with them.
The last time it was a coffee table (Score:1)
Gimme a break!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
500 customers not units as usual the fucking Slashdot summary is shit. These are enterprise devices, common target environment is video conferencing, would not surprise me if 500 customers equates to many thousands of units.
And it wouldn't surprise me if 500 customers means 500 resellers, each shipped 1 evaluation/display unit.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
they don't go through resellers.
No. Of course not.
"We are ramping up production to meet this strong demand via our partner reseller channel as soon as possible." Reading is FUNdamental.
Re: (Score:2)
500 customers not units as usual the fucking Slashdot summary is shit. These are enterprise devices, common target environment is video conferencing, would not surprise me if 500 customers equates to many thousands of units.
And it wouldn't surprise me if 500 customers means 500 resellers, each shipped 1 evaluation/display unit.
unlikely, resellers don't tend to buy these sort of items without orders placed, puts too much inventory on their books.
Re: (Score:2)
many thousands of units.
...which would be impressive.... For a Kickstarter Project. But for a multiBillion-dollar, multinational corporation, with huge R&D resources for both software and hardware? Not so much.
Re: (Score:2)
1000 units at an average of $10K each (one is 8K the other 20K, only MS knows the real numbers) is 10 million dollars of revenue, and that would be an average of 2 units per customer. If it was as low as 10 per customer that's $50 million. I don't think anyone would turn their nose up at that, even a Fortune 500 company.
Re: (Score:2)
1000 units at an average of $10K each (one is 8K the other 20K, only MS knows the real numbers) is 10 million dollars of revenue, and that would be an average of 2 units per customer. If it was as low as 10 per customer that's $50 million. I don't think anyone would turn their nose up at that, even a Fortune 500 company.
Your numbers are both purely speculative, and are still fairly small potatoes for a F 500 company.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I admitted they are speculative, but they are conservative. And yes this would be a tiny portion of their revenue, but this isn't their whole business or their bread and butter, it's a brand new thing they're trying out. And I assume they don't look at revenues and compare them to their $93B total because they wouldn't ever try anything thinking of it that way. "This project will probably only make $250M so why bother, that would only increase our revenues 0.25%." I doubt it.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Note that's just THE MOST RECENT story relating to Microsofts' violations of people's privacy and their sovereign right to control computers bought and paid for with THEIR OWN MONEY. There are plenty more over the last several months.
But of course some cock-sucking Microsoft fanboi like you doesn't care about anything so trivial and meaningless like FACTS
Re: (Score:2)
As opposed to Google harvesting everything that you do?
Re: (Score:1)
As opposed to Google harvesting everything that you do?
Ony if you let it.
It is very easy to block or reduce considerably Google collecting data about you. You don't even have to use Google services if you don't want to.
AÐÐh? (Score:1)
Limited demand (Score:1, Interesting)
They might have sold 50,000 units. It does not matter much.
The truth is that while there is a niche for product, the fact is that people will not be able to work on one screen for a long time. What this product is really a digital whiteboard (to produce corporate cave paintings) and high quality video teleconference device. That is about it.
If they think there will be other uses, then they need to get this: they might have resolved tons of technical challenges, kudos for that, but human psychology is far fa
Re: (Score:2)
They might have sold 50,000 units. It does not matter much.
Do the math: 50,000 * 8,999 = almost half a billion $. I think it would matter a bit.
Re: (Score:3)
people cannot work in a close contact with each other for a long time
Explain Mulder & Scully.
Re: (Score:2)
people cannot work in a close contact with each other for a long time.
I would be interested if you have anything to support that claim. Certainly introverts cannot comfortably work in close contact for long periods (in general at least), but most people aren't introverts. At any rate, it sounds like this is for meetings, not for people to work on together all day.
We're a customer with 1 unit (Score:3, Informative)
And my goodness it's a pain to set up. We've been working on it for a few weeks now to replace a current regular PC connected to a regular 52'' HD screen for Lync video-conferencing, and it's still not installed for general use because of things like domain-joined-but-not-really-behaving-domain-joined, problems authenticating to proxy servers due to aforementioned issue, and other strangeness. I'm a network/firewall engineer, but the server guys working on the unit are asking for my help with wireshark and packet captures from the network side, because they can't work out what the heck the thing is doing, and it's locked down like crazy so you can't install or even inspect what you can if it was a normal Windows PC. It's not a regular computing device. I would liken it more to a Windows Phone with a giant screen, given what you're allowed to do on it.
I wouldn't have recommended purchasing it partly because I don't trust the cloud (I assume it's purchased and not a demo unit), and this thing appears to be pretty cloud integrated, but highers ups see ooh shiny.
Re: (Score:3)
What do you mean? It's a big touch-screen running Windows 10.
Basically you're saying your IT department can't figure out how to network with Windows 10.
Re: (Score:2)
And for that kind of money MS won't send someone to set it up?
success! (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Set the bar really low. In the basement, preferably.
2) Sell more than that very low value. Act surprised.
3) Success!
Im sure the stockholders will be impressed.
OF COURSE they're selling out! (Score:2)
They're so compelling. Even the smallest -- the 55-inch model -- can display up to four tweets at once.
http://www.democraticundergrou... [democratic...ground.com]
I initially read 500k worldwide (Score:2)
My brain processed it as 500k worldwide for some reason and I thought "damn, is that all!".
But 500 WORLDWIDE? Why is this even an article?
Smaller and more personal, NOT BIGGER (Score:1)
Problem: I have a crick in my neck from craning to see a single screen of any size in conference rooms, people turning the resolution down to 800x600 to get the fonts bigger for people in the back, and the constant projector focusing.
I want a solution using cheap (~$60) personal tablets that interconnect and share a single screen from a presentation PC. Yet I cannot find this that integrates well with Windows applications. 15 Chinese androids and one presenter laptop. Why is this so hard?
No, let's build on
They are hoping to hit "VCR numbers" by next year (Score:2)
One company's success is another's failure.