Various questions about SurfaceHub

Hi!

I think a really good place for you to start would be here. One of the key things to realise is that, while Surface Hub runs a variant of Windows 10 (Windows 10 Team) it behaves, and thus has to be managed, very differently to a traditional Windows 10 PC. To directly answer your questions though:

Antivirus

Surface Hub has Windows Defender built in. As there is no ability to run traditional win32 apps, you cannot install any other anti-virus applications or services on the Surface Hub. Information on the security of the Surface Hub can be read here.

Printing

This is something that hasn't come up for me and I've not actually ever tried! That having been said, I would imagine not as, again. there is no win32 environment in which to install the required print drivers. Happy to be corrected on this though if anyone else has actually attempted this!

The Surface Hub has many features that are meant to be used and consumed digitally, such as the Whiteboard, which can save whiteboard sessions to OneDrive, or email them out in OneNote/PNG formats.

Supervision

Surface Hub can be managed and configured by MDM (Mobile Device Management). Common MDM platforms include Microsoft Intune, MobileIron, AirWatch, Miraki etc. Traditional options such as SCCM are not available as, again, no win32 environment!

David Phillips has contributed a great number of examples of the SyncML that can be manually deployed via MDM to manage a whole variety of different settings on Surface Hub here.

You can also register your Surface Hub with Microsoft Operations Management Suite to get telemetry data from the Surface Hub, including heatbeat, and details on how they are being utilised. A free instance of OMS will allow you to collect up to 500MB of data per day and retain the data for 1 week. I find that our 35 Surface Hubs send back about 30MB collectively per week.

Generic Info

I think the key thing to realise is that Surface Hub is a collaboration device. It's built specifically for addressing the needs of meeting rooms, huddle spaces, and other areas where collaboration between multiple people (either on-site or off-site) is required. It is NOT a full Windows 10 PC, and it will not give you the same functionality. It's meant to be robust, easy for end users, and simple to deploy and manage.

It focusses mostly on 3 key aspects: digital whiteboarding with co-authoring, audio/video conferences with Skype for Business, and device screen-sharing both wired and wireless with Miracast.

At the time we invested in Surface Hub, there weren't ANY other players in this market. There is now the Cisco Spark Board, Google Jamboard, and I'm sure a few others now.

If you have any follow-up questions please feel free to comment. There's a great wealth of knowledge here about the product in use in real-world scenarios :-)