Second lockdown? Perfect time to unveil Teams Breakout rooms and another ginormitor – the 85-inch Surface Hub 2S

It wouldn't be a Microsoft event without some VP somewhere banging on about Teams, and the company's annual Ignite (now virtual) get-together did not disappoint. Teams has received considerable Microsoft attention as the Slack-for-suits collaboration platform has gained in popularity, in part to it being tricky to avoid if you …

[Anonymous Coward]

Crank that whale song up to eleven and rip off the knob

[RM Myers]

$21,999 85-inch jumped-up whiteboard

It boggles my mind just thinking about how much Apple would charge for the wheels on an monitor this big. Would it be more than my Outback cost new? Or maybe that BMW X5 M I know I can't afford.

Inquiring minds, etc.

[IGotOut]

Re: $21,999 85-inch jumped-up whiteboard

"Or maybe that BMW X5 M I know I can't afford."

Just put a condom over your head. That way you get to look like a dick without spending a fortune.

[Youngone]

Re: $21,999 85-inch jumped-up whiteboard

I have bought several "digital whiteboards" for various bosses (or whatever the trendy term was at the time) in my career, and some of them cost way more than $21,999, but none of them were used for more than a couple of months.

Maybe this one is great, but I wouldn't bet on it, if it were my money.

[Richard 12]

Re: $21,999 85-inch jumped-up whiteboard

Digital whiteboards are big in education.

Weirdly, the school ones are far cheaper, far bigger, and work far better than the ones aimed at corporate bigheads.

Plus you can clean off the vomit much easier.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pulitzer right there

"by tomorrow the U-turn machine will have spun once more and sprayed policy like an incontinent elephant on a waltzer"

[Anonymous Coward]

Muppet Show for Teams

I still can't stop laughing at this.

Muppet Factor Authentication anyone?

[katrinab]

You can get an 85” TV for about £2000. A computer to attach to, depends what spec you want and what you want to do with it, but for the typical use cases of something with a screen that big, it probably doesn’t need to be that expensive. A core 2 duo with 8GB RAM runs Teams reasonably adequately. You might want something a little faster than that, but a 10900K would be overkill.

What do you get for $22,000? I presume a touchscreen and some sort of stylus support? Is that worth the extra money? Maybe for a few people, but I don’t see it being a big market.

[Tim99]

Or, if you want a '4K Touchscreen Monitor', from say Dell, the prices are: 55" - £642; 70" - £2,201; and 86" - £5,519. So how big does it need to be?

[petef]

Clippy 2.0

"hopefully not obscuring that critical bit of information with a giant head"

Now here is an original idea. The presenter could be represented by an avatar that hides little. How about a talking paperclip?

[drand]

Christ Almighty

These goons are trying to make working from home even more bloody awful than actually going in to the office during a pandemic. Someone lock them and their stupid ideas away until this is all over.

[Chairman of the Bored]

Wait... Virtual commute?

I already experience one, what with the ten to thirty minutes wasted trying to worm my way onto the corporate VPN, waiting for Outlook to deign to download my ration of comms, and saying "Hi" to the team members on Teams.

They want to make this even slower? WTF!?

Admittedly in the physical office I fire up the computer and then go walkabout for thirty anyways, but still...