Microsoft’s new 84-inch tablet can be yours for a mere $20,000!

Last week, during a press preview at Manhattan’s Westin Hotel, Mike Angiulo, corporate vice president of Microsoft devices, switched on the Surface Hub, a new 84-inch Windows touchscreen that he hopes will kickstart any work meeting. “If you blink, you’ll miss it,” said Anguilo as he tapped the touchscreen. With that single gesture, he flipped on the Surface Hub’s cameras, microphones and digital whiteboard — everything you’d need to get a teleconference going. The Surface Hub is an all-in-one replacement for the meeting room equipment you’ve come to know and loathe: The projector, that insipid blue screen, those star-shaped speakerphones and eyeball-shaped webcams and endless cords trailing everywhere. If you’ve ever fantasized about cutting through this gordian knot of audio-visual equipment, the Surface Hub is for you. But odds are you’re not the one who has to write the check. Microsoft unveiled the price of the Surface Hub Wednesday, and it falls well outside of the average worker bee’s budget. The 84-inch model will set an office back by $19,999, the 55-inch model by $6,999. At those prices, the Surface Hub’s sales team will have to aim their pitches high, convincing senior managers and Chief Technology Officers that a massive touchscreen won’t just kickstart meetings, but supercharge the discussions that brought all of those workers together in the first place.