The Ideal Collaboration Tool?
The idea of touch-enabled presentation and collaboration on massive 4K screens is a mouth-watering prospect of business meeting room productivity at its utmost. In the ideal situation room, leaders stand with their team gathered around their touch-enabled displays sharing vital documents from laptops, tablets, phablets and desktops in other time zones with the touch of a finger. Collaborators dial in to join the brainstorming, drawing up plans, analyzing impressive amounts of data, and making vital decisions, together, in real-time. While many touch-enabled displays and smartboards on the market don’t quite live up to this almost mythical ideal, Microsoft and Crestron aim to bring integrated meeting spaces a step closer to effortless multi-touch collaboration nirvana with their upcoming Windows 10-powered Microsoft Surface Hub (now scheduled to ship January 1, 2016) and Crestron’s Microsoft Surface Hub Solutions.
What makes it different than other touch-enabled displays?
More than an Interactive Display
While many interactive displays simply provide a touch interface option for standard PCs running typical desktop software (that isn’t necessarily optimized for touch control), Microsoft Surface Hub is a solution designed to truly take advantage of multi-touch on the large screen to enable group collaboration.
Microsoft Windows 10 – The Surface Hub is built to truly take advantage of Microsoft’s new Windows 10 OS – which is made for touch interaction while not abandoning classic Windows features.
Touch-Optimized Apps – Surface Hub ships with custom-designed, touch-optimized Microsoft Office apps while playing nicely with classic, universal Windows apps. Surface Hub also includes collaboration-optimized OneNote and is optimized for other large screen apps like Mural.ly and Stormboard. Plus, the Microsoft Surface Hub platform allows for creation of custom apps crafted specifically for unique business needs.
Gigantic Touch Screens – thanks to Microsoft’s acquisition of Perceptive Pixel, both 55″ HD and 84″ 4K screens will be available – both with silky-smooth, pressure-sensitive touch capabilities. The 55″ can be mounted on a portable stand.
Many Ways to Control – To navigate and operate Surface Hub you can use your fingers, the pressure sensitive control pen or even voice control via Microsoft’s Cortana Virtual Assistant.
Multiple Users – The system’s advanced touch capabilities recognize up to 100 touch points, allowing multiple users to interact on-screen simultaneously – even running multiple apps on screen at the same time (particularly easy on the 84″ screen!) Plus, apps from personal devices can be connected, viewed and driven from Microsoft Surface Hub.
Integrated Cameras, Mics & Speakers – Two built-in, wide-angle HD cameras mounted in the corners of the screen allow for video conferencing connections. Integrated microphones and front-facing stereo speakers are standard.
Integrated Solutions from MSpace & Crestron
With so much functionality right out-of-the gate, the Microsoft Surface Hub might be perfect for your meeting room or huddle space – particularly if your organization relies heavily on Microsoft Windows OS in your workflow. Yes, you will be able to buy Surface Hub directly from Microsoft when it is available in 2016. But, if you want to truly integrate Surface Hub into your meeting space, our friends at Crestron are the only Strategic Partner Reseller and Technology Partner authorized to sell Surface
Hub worldwide and MSpace can help design your system and integrate it with your enterprise’s audio, video and control systems. Crestron currently offers two integrator kits:
Integrator Kit 1: DigitalMedia Presentation System, 7″ tabletop touchscreen, Crestron Connect It tabletop presentation interface & cable management, 7″ scheduling touchscreen, all necessary cabling
Integrator Kit 2: DigitalMedia Presentation System, 10″ tabletop touchscreen, (2) Crestron Connect It tabletop presentation interface & cable management, (2) USB touch switching between Connect Its, AirMedia, 7″ scheduling touchscreen, all necessary cabling
Contact your iSpace account manager or email us if you would like to discuss collaboration tools.