Following rumours last week, more news has emerged which has confirmed we won't see the launch of Microsoft's Surface Hub 2X in 2020. The Surface Hub 2X device was announced in 2018 and was to be released this year featuring a completely new OS with tiling and display rotation.
in 2018 Microsoft said it would launch a Surface Hub 2S in 2019 which would not provide tiling and display rotation. Those features would come in 2020 as part of a newer Surface Hub 2X model, as well as be available to 2S users via a paid 'cartridge'/module upgrade.
Late last week, Petri.com reported that
Microsoft had delayed significantly or possibly decided not to ship at all its Surface Hub 2X model.
This has now been confimed, thanks to leaks from a Microsoft webinar last week aimed at customers and resellers in which Microsoft said it was still committed to developing tiling and rotation but not when these features will arrive.
“They might not require an upgrade for Surface Hub 2S customers, or they might not require a paid compute cartridge swap,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in the webinar. “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."
Instead, Microsoft is now planning to release a 'major software update' for Surface Hub and Surface Hub 2 customers and its larger 85-in device. It will be based on the first 2020 release of Windows 10.
Microsoft is releasing this update free of charge for all Surface Hub v1 and Surface Hub 2S devices, whereas the 2X processor cartridge upgrade would have only been available for Surface Hub 2S devices.