Microsoft's Surface Hub 2X is reportedly delayed, and possibly canceled

Microsoft first announced the Surface Hub 2 in May 2018, and while it promised the new collaborative computer in 2019, the messaging changed drastically by that point. In September of 2018, Microsoft said there would be two Surface Hubs, the 2S and the 2X. The former would be the same as the original Surface Hub, while the latter would have all of the promised features for the Surface Hub 2.

Now, the 2S would be available in 2019 and he 2X was coming in 2020. The Redmond firm blamed businesses for the change, saying that what customers really wanted was the same experience but in the new body. According to Microsoft, the Surface Hub 2X wasn't delayed at all, and this was the plan all along.

According to a new report from Brad Sams of Petri, things are changing again. The Surface Hub 2X is reportedly indefinitely delayed, and possibly won't ship at all. Moreover, Microsoft has removed a bunch of the original promotional videos that it made around the product.

Sams received a statement from Microsoft saying, "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."

And there it is. Microsoft is once again saying that the original Windows 10 Team experience is what businesses want, and it's continuing to work on that. The Surface Hub 2X is based on Windows Core OS, which is also included in the already-shipping HoloLens 2 and the upcoming Surface Neo. It would be no surprise to learn that the reason for the delay is because Microsoft is behind on the software.

The Surface Hub 2X was going to offer some interesting features, such as Dynamic Rotation and the ability to tile up to four units side-by-side. Perhaps, Microsoft has simply decided that those features aren't useful enough for business customers.