Whoa! It had been far too quiet on the Surface Hub front lately, and we now know why. Microsoft has had a change of heart regarding Surface Hub 2X, and has revised its release roadmap once again.
The company has also unceremoniously cancelled the upgrade cartridge.
This was meant to be an upgrade for Surface Hub 2S owners to improve the processor and GPU inside that device. It was also part of how the company would have enabled tiling and rotation support in its collaborative touchscreen device.
But now, in a leaked webinar to Surface Hub 2 sellers, the company has revealed that the plans for this upgrade cartridge have been put on hold, with Microsoft now planning to release a major software update for the Surface Hub and Surface Hub 2 instead.
In the words of a company spokesperson:
“They might not require an upgrade for Surface Hub 2S customers, or they might not require a paid compute cartridge swap. We don’t have plans to release a compute cartridge in 2020, because the best way to release those capabilities — tiling and rotation — may not require us to take that path.”
Hmm.
As a matter of pure fact, the company confirmed that the top two priorities for Hub this year are deploying the 85″ device, and rolling out an update that packs many of the wanted features that customers had been asking for.
Getting back to the major software update the company is alluding to, it will be based on the first 2020 release of the Windows 10 operating platform. It will include more IT friendly integration, deployment, and manageability features.
Somewhat surprisingly, this update will be based on the latest Windows 10 release, not on the modern Windows CoreOS platform that is set to power Windows 10X devices like the Surface Neo.
But the good thing is that this update will be released free of charge for all Surface Hub owners, including those rocking the original hardware.
Oh well.