Last summer, Microsoft announced Surface as a Service, an alliterative program aimed and introducing Surface hardware into the enterprise through a lease that also involved subscriptions to services like Office 356 and Windows 10. Today the company expands the program to a piece of hardware that makes even more sense under the umbrella.
After all, at $8,999 for the 55-inch model and $21,999 for the 84-inch version, the Surface Hub may well be too rich for a lot of companies’ blood — particularly given the fact that the interactive video conferencing whiteboard isn’t exactly a well-trod space for most businesses.
The company is also launching a similar Surface Hub Try and Buy program, which lets companies in the U.S., U.K., Europe and Asia test the system for 30 days before buying it.
Apparently the Hub has already gotten a bit of momentum on its own. The company’s not giving exact numbers on shipments, but it revealed that the device has been shipped to more than 2,000 customers since its launch nine months prior, with buyers picking up as many as 1,500 units in a go.
The Hub also has seen increased competition of late, with lower-cost enterprise solutions like Google’s Jamboard and Cisco’s Spark Board.