Microsoft Surface Hub conferencing system starts shipping
Microsoft's Surface Hub conferencing system, available in two large-screen models, finally are starting to ship to customers worldwide. — After a few delays, Microsoft's Surface Hub conferencing system has started shipping to customers …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Surface Hub's arrival closes a slip that began when Microsoft pushed its ship date from September 2015 to January 2016 in an earlier schedule delay, and even that revised target passed before units reached customers. Shipping now starts worldwide in two large-screen models, at a price point that runs up to $22K per unit per later coverage.
What makes this more than a launch story is what follows it: within months Microsoft reported demand exceeding forecasts with over 500 customers shipped, and by December it counted 2,000+ customers buying in average deals of 50 units — evidence the Hub found a repeatable enterprise buyer rather than a novelty market.
First-order effects
- Enterprise customers who ordered during the delay window finally take delivery of a $22K-class room system, converting Microsoft's backlog into recognized hardware revenue.
- Microsoft gains a shipping product in the meeting-room category, giving its sales force a large-format Surface offering to attach to enterprise deals.
Second-order effects
- Demand outrunning forecasts — over 500 customers by July and average deals of 50 units by year-end — pushes Microsoft toward volume manufacturing and channel stocking rather than build-to-order scarcity.
- Rivals in conference-room hardware face a credible Microsoft-branded alternative bundled with the software stack enterprises already run, forcing them to compete on integration and price per room.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the Hub becomes a durable product line rather than a one-off experiment — which is exactly how it plays out, with Microsoft refreshing it as the Surface Hub 2S in 2019 at a lower entry price.
- The trajectory points toward meeting rooms being treated as managed compute endpoints — large screens plus conferencing software sold in fleet-sized deals — a structure Microsoft's own 50-unit average deal size already reflects.
The trend: Large-format collaborative displays are consolidating into a sustained enterprise hardware category, with Microsoft moving from delayed one-off shipments to refreshed product generations and multi-unit corporate deployments.