Microsoft’s Surface Hub 2X is Delayed and May Never Ship

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Back in May of 2018, Microsoft made a big splash by announcing the Surface Hub 2. The hardware was the follow-up to the successful Surface Hub but the company was pushing the software and hardware in an ambitious new direction.

The new hardware had two key features, it rotated 90 degrees and that you could link multiple displays together as tiles. With a high-resolution display, USB-C, a high-end processor, and a lot more packed into the modern display, there was a lot of excitement around Microsoft s more-affordable conference room display.

But as the narrative continued in the weeks and months ahead, Microsoft backtracked a little bit and said that they would actually ship two second-generation hubs, the 2S and 2X. The 2S removed some of the hallmark features of the 2X, like rotating display and tiling, but kept the overall look and feel of the previously announced Surface Hub 2.

Which brings us to today where people familiar with the company’s plans have indicated that Microsoft has canceled or significantly delayed the Surface Hub 2X and that it will not be shipping as previously announced. In fact, if you go back and look at the announcement, Microsoft has pulled the Surface Hub 2 video and other assets related to the 2X have been scrubbed as well.

I reached out to Microsoft for a comment regarding the 2X, and here is what they had to say: “We have an ongoing dialogue with our customers on Hub and are working to align the roadmap to best meet their needs. The top two priorities for Hub in 2020 are deploying the 85” device and rolling out an OS update that includes many top features customers have been requesting since Surface Hub 2S launched, including improving IT integration, deployment and management capabilities at no cost for all version 1 Hubs and Hub 2S devices. We’ll have more to share in the coming months.”

The Surface Hub remains a key component of the Surface family and the 2S will not be going away anytime soon. One potential reason cited by those familiar with the company’s plans for the cancellation is that the development of WCOS, Windows Core OS, is not going as smoothly as expected which is causing delays for some implementations.

For those who were looking to buy a Hub 2X, you will now be pushed towards purchasing a 2S as it will retain the majority of the features of the 2X. But if you were holding out for a display that you could rotate with your finger, for now, you are out of luck.