Microsoft's Surface Hub to be made in the good old USA

By John Callaham
last updated

While companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft outsource most of these hardware to factories overseas, the upcoming Surface Hub touchscreen PCs will be made in the good old USA. Microsoft has opened a factory located in Wilsonville, Oregon, outside of Portland, to assemble the big Surface Hub PCs, which will begin shipping sometime in September.

According to The New York Times, part of the reason for this move was that the touchscreen devices created by Perceptive Pixel, which Microsoft acquired in 2013, were also assembled in Wilsonville. It stated:

"Microsoft said the factory, covering about four acres with 18 docking bays for delivery trucks, now has a combined engineering and manufacturing staff of a couple of hundred people, about seven times that of the original Perceptive Pixel team. Although many components in the product will come from overseas, the Surface Hub will be stamped with the phrase "Manufactured in Portland, OR, USA."

Another reason for this move was that Microsoft could not find any existing factories overseas that would be able to handle the large Surface Hub, which weighs as much as 220 pounds. It would also be expensive for those PCs to ship from overseas to customers in the US.

Source: The New York Times

John Callaham
John Callaham
72 Comments
  • Hope it'll make the quality even more better.
  • What? Already? We haven't even seen the leaked pics of the cases for these bastards yet!
  • He means that building it in the USA would yield a better quality product.
    I would say not necessarily.
  • Good job Microsoft! We need other US companies to do the same. We need to create more jobs in the states.
  • I'd argue that we need a more educated workforce than simply more factory jobs. These are typically the jobs that would be offshored, but in a decade or two will largely be automated.
  • "It would also be expensive for those PCs to ship from overseas to customers in the US." Now it would be expensive for everyone else lol
  • LOL, it's funny how one can read the same words in the same order and it can mean something totally different.
  • That is always the case if you only have one factory building something.  However, at least in this case many will be sold in the country where they are being made.  How many do you think will sell in a place like Vietnam or India?  Why manufacture in the East when most of these large, heavy, and expensive items will be sold in the West?
  • WOW! so you think bussiness in India are not capable of buying such thing, or you must think there are no bussiness in india, how ignorant can you be bro? Do try to find out a little more about indian economy and bussiness working here!
  • I heard your country is divided into tech modern society and religious old society
  • Yes! it's kinda like that.
  • Didn't a noodle brand (Maggi or something) just get banned in India. Good ol' Indian businesses.
  • That's Nestle i don't think thats just sold in India, neither is it an Indian company.
  • But there hasn't been lead poisoning in the rest of the world. It just shows that global brands don't really care about Indian consumers, seeing as they're killing them.
  • Don't know why you're taking offense to that comment. Simple research will tell you that he's right. It's just business, nothing personal.
  • "most of these large, heavy, and expensive items will be sold in the West" They said most, which implies some will be purchased outside the US, so you jumped the gun in assuming they implied foreign businesses would not be interested. Rather, they implied that the SH is targeted towards major multimillion dollar corporations that a predominantly based in the west (Not to say there aren't multi-million dollar corporations outside the US, but I feel you'll more likely find a corporation stateside willing to put thousands of dollars into a device like the SH than you would on foreign soil, especially considering the fact that already off the bat many Asian countries appear to be closed off to products from American companies, even when assembled on their own soil)
  • Exactly.  Thanks.
  • I didn't say any of that.  I said that no matter which single country is the origin of manufacture, all other coutries will have to get the product as export.  Of course there are companies in India that would purchase this product, but the vast majority would probably be exported to other countries (which is costly for such a large and heavy product).  For this specific product, why not manufacture it in one of those countries and export the smaller percentage to India?  BTW: I only used India and Vietnam as examples because both have economies that are very heavy on manufacturing while being fairly low on expensive product consumption. 
  • What about shopping to other markets?
  • Great! Now the Chinese kids are unemployed!
  • They will create a copy of this
  • Introducing the Macrosoft Platform Hab
  • It will be maocrosoft
  • Wth.. Lol!
  • What! You want more stuff manufactured in China? US=Better Quality
  • All products seem to have their specialist manufacturing countries, watches need to be Swiss, pedal cycles need to be from Taiwan, and "most" of the best electronics are made in the East. American stuff obviously suits you, and that's good to support your home country. USAs specialist area seems to operating systems for electronics / software services
  • MatchAttax08 I see the humour removal operation was a success, congratulations.
  • That isn't even close to being true.
  • Keep in mind the price tag and who will be buying these things. Outsourcing is directly a function of consumers wanting cheaper things.
  • Equally and maybe even more so a consequence of stock holders obsession with profits... Even companies that do great outsource more and more for the soul purpose of looking good for their stock holders = less jobs in western style countries for people with little or no education. Sadly :/
  • It all depends I know USA pays there workers better then china but the price can still be low it all depends on quantity if you can make 300 PC's in one hour then it would be cheaper then if you could only make one so it depends on how many they can make in one day the more the better at getting the price down cuz if I am asking 200 dollars for said PC it wouldn't be much money if I was to pay someone 15 and hour but if that same person assembled 200 of those said computers then even with you asking only 200 dollars for it you would make a good profits that was just a example but that's one way to make items cheaper even when the cost of living is more then in other countries
  • yay you know basic math.
  • But it's not meant for consumers.... It's mean for business where this stuff isn't expensive to buy. some people spend thousands on wires, yet consumers pay few bucks for that. conference rooms (the ones that would buy Surface Hub) weren't cheap, so buying a Surface Hub is not bad deal.   So Yes, business can buy it, because it's meant for them, and especially for their conference rooms or meeting rooms.
  • Now let's hope EU makes a free market agreement with US, it's prohibitive for EU citizens to import US goods.
  • No it's not :P We just pay a tax like every country does when importing stuff from another union.
  • Ridiculous statement. I get stuff from the U.S. all the time!
  • Maybe he got confused because of the cases the EU have made with US companies.
  • He meant "prohibitive" because of the ridiculous increase in the US postal services I think. A couple of years ago the US hiked the shipping costs to Europe to ridiculous highs. And then you have the taxes customs charges for every single piece of paper.   I have to sign under his statement: the faster that bloody Commercial Agreement gets signed the better for us Europeans AND for Americans wishing to import stuff from Europe because all the custom taxes will be gone. (you'll probably still have to pay the VAT but it's better to pay only VAT than VAT+custom taxes+paperworks etc). 
  • AMERICA...F**K YEAH! (Or something, I dunno, I'm British)
  • Ha!
  • *MURICA!!!
  • Don't know which type of companies will buy surface hub? It may used to design a new product. IMO I don't think so companies will buy just for their meetings using Skype OneNote etc.
  • I feel like it'll be great to make presentations to outside parties feel much more impressive. It's meant to be fancy, imho
  • Hotels that cater to business clients might buy a few for those clients meetings.
  • companies that use the paper white board alot. this would work well for them. I used them alot, then carried the scrolls of paper around, i can see how this would make it easier, but i think they are expensive, but how much does a large samsung screen cost any way?
  • It's going to be built in the good old USA, rather than the current USA? Is time travel involved? :-P
  • ...you must not be from the "good old USA"!
  • He figured it out! kill him!
    Hide the time teleporter!
    Okay, look normal everybody, hey hide his arm also.
    Nothing to see here, keep walking. ;)
  • Comes with free DeLorean
  • This is cool. You know, Lenovo has a plant in North Carolina where the manufacture ThinkPads. We just need other tech companies to follow suit.
  • I feel sorry for the poor delivery drivers and warehouse stockists as this thing is huge and heavy. Edit, hmm actually it's not that heavy 220 pounds = roughly 100kg.
     
  • Explains a bit of the extremely high price
  • Wen made in India?
  • You call me when these are manufactured in Europe. Otherwise I couldn't care less if they're manuafactured in the US or China. I trust them equally to delivery quality.
  • Damn, 220 pound PC?  Whatever system you use 220 lbs or 100 kg is heavy.  That's about what I bench press. 
  • 220 pounds? I think my first PC, a 486 Packard Bell with a 17 inch CRT monitor weighed more than that.
  • I imagine this isn't going to be a device that will get moved around a lot one it's in place.
  • 220ib? Wow! That's a one big hub
  • If I could buy anything except made in China would be great...
  • No big deal, i expect China to have more expertise in manufacturing than USA which has less manufacturing jobs and less experienced workers.
  • You're kidding, right?
  • Yay Wilsonville. I work in Wilaonville. I am easily excited 
  • I want one.. I will only use it as a monitor but knowing I have that 100 point touch display will help me sleep better at night....
  • Another reason for that move is: I've seen the "Made in China, Assembled in USA" quite often recently.
  • If USA is "old", EU is R.I.P. :D
    I love the Hub, anyway it s a little too much expensive for now ;)
  • It's good to see this happening, I used to work in Wilsonville and now this brings more jobs to the local economy.
  • suck it, china. suuuuccck ittt! *spits*
  • I'll bet its better than Chinese products
  • MERICA' FUCK YEA
  • I guess that's a good thing for something that could be expensive to ship.
  • I look at it this way, if the compay is based in the USA, the products have to be made in the USA! If their not made in the USA, the product can't be sold in the USA. Pretty simple
  • So... You don't buy anything then?