14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s gigantic Surface Hub display that attempts to innovate in the conference room will be made in the United States and not overseas, the Redmond-based tech giant confirms, as the company is searching for reduced costs and better build quality.
While it might sound a little bit out of the ordinary to obtain lower costs when building a product in the United States and not in China, Microsoft says that this is possible mostly because of the dimensions and the price of the new device.
First and foremost, the Surface Hub will be manufactured in Wilsonville, Ore., approximately 200 miles from the company’s headquarters in Redmond. Wilsonville was also the home of Perceptive Pixel, the company that was purchased by Microsoft in 2012 and that provided the technology for building the Surface Hub - Perceptive Pixel previously built large touch displays, so the Surface Hub uses a lot of their technologies.
Since Perceptive Pixel already had a plant in the area, the manufacturing equipment and staff are already there, with Microsoft currently employing nearly 200 at the local factor.
Lower costs in the US
The NYT writes that, despite the fact that the Surface Hub will come with several hardware components built overseas, the device will be stamped with a “Manufactured in Portland, OR, USA” phrase, which will make it one of the few products that are actually made in the United States and not overseas.
At the same time, building the Surface Hub in the United States could costs less, simply because the device is very heavy - it weighs in 220 pounds/100 kilograms, so it could be very expensive to build it in another country and then bring it back in the United States.
The Surface Hub will launch in 24 markets in September, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.
Pricing for the Surface Hub will be $6,999 (55-inch) and $19,999 (84-inch) when it goes on sale later this year.
The full technical specifications of the Surface Hub are available here.