RSMUS.comThere is more to the Microsoft Surface family of products than just tablets! Microsoft envisioned a complete line of products that enable you to work in a variety of scenarios.
For most folks, “Microsoft Surface” is the highly successful “tablet that replaces your laptop”, but did you know that the Surface is only one member of a growing family of products bearing the familiar Surface brand name?
Let’s take a quick tour of the various Surface products currently available that can make a tremendous impact on your productivity at work and on the go. We’ll start with the most recent released products and make our way back to the original Microsoft Surface tablet.
Microsoft Surface Studio
Surface “Studio” is the newest member of the family. It’s a unique and game changing product that took the industry by surprise in late October 2016. The Microsoft Surface Studio will undoubtedly be the envy of professionals in the creative, design and engineering space.
Surface Studio features a massive 28” canvas to do your work. As shown above, the screen can be lowered to work as a canvas, on which you can digitally write, paint, compose, etc. Full touch-screen capability is built into the screen.
Surface Dial
Surface “Dial” is a new device to control how you interact with your applications and work. Whereas, a mouse is meant to control the location of your cursor and where you interact on the screen, the Surface Dial enables functionality you might find familiar via a mouse-scroll-wheel. Scrolling, size adjustments, volume control, or fine-tuned color selection from a palette of millions of colors, are some examples of its use.
Surface Dial works with Surface Studio, Surface Book and the Surface Pro tablet. It can be placed anywhere on your work surface, and has special capabilities when placed on the Surface Studio screen.
Surface Pen
Surface “Pen” enables you to digitally write, draw, erase, and select, cut and paste, with just your writing hand. It features 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity, and feels natural like non-digital writing instruments. Take notes and annotate on existing documents, or markup web pages using Surface Pen and the Microsoft Edge browser built into Windows 10.
Surface Hub
The Microsoft Surface “Hub” is the next step in the evolution of collaboration capabilities for your team. It’s designed to replace the traditional conference room projector and screen, whiteboard, and video conferencing setup, in one intuitive solution. It uses a simplified Windows 10 interface you are already familiar with, and runs Microsoft Office and Windows “App Store” applications.
Surface “Hub” is fully integrated with Microsoft Office 365 cloud services such as Outlook calendar and meetings. It has specific capabilities for Skype for Business, enabling telephony and web conferencing, and local and remote group collaboration. Surface “Hub” is available in 55” and 80” screens and can be wall or stand-mounted.
Surface Book
Microsoft’s first complete laptop is known as the Surface Book. It is a fully featured Windows 10 laptop with a range of performance features. Various models support basic productivity applications to high-end design and engineering solutions with an optional, dedicated graphics processing unit (GPU).
As with all Surface products, it features exceptional high-resolution screen specifications, and a touch-screen. The screen can also be quickly detached for a standalone tablet mode.
Surface
Last, but not least, is the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 “designed to replace your laptop”. It is a full-featured tablet running Windows 10 with a detachable keyboard/protective cover, and kick-stand. Run all of your existing Windows applications, and explore new tablet and touch capabilities on one device.
The Surface Pro 4 is highly-refined and represents the sixth iteration of one of Microsoft’s most popular and successful products.
The Microsoft Surface Family is The Cloud-Ready Computing Family for your Business
The Microsoft Surface family are designed to be the first entirely cloud-managed products. No on-site servers are needed to manage devices and store information. Securely share documents and data with your team and across your organization.
Of course, Microsoft is also the only vendor that offers the flexibility of Microsoft Hybrid Cloud- where you can utilize the on-site servers and IT resources you already have today, and integrate with them and/or transition to cloud-based IT services you have planned for your organization.
Come spend a few hours with us in a Customer Immersion Experience (CIE), and we’ll give you hands-on time to experience how Microsoft’s vision of “mobile-first, cloud-first” computing can empower you and your organization.
We would love to assist you with developing a strategy to take advantage of Microsoft Surface products and cloud computing for your business. To learn more or for more information on RSM’s consulting services, and managed services offerings please check out our website. You can also contact RSM’s technology consulting professionals at 800.274.3978.
*All products and product screenshots © 2016 Microsoft Corporation.
