Peak Performance with Microsoft Surface: Here's How

September 27, 2023 7 Min Read By: Jason Fris

Here at Compugen, we give employees a lot of choice when it comes to the devices they use—we're big believers in this philosophy and how it helps our fellow teammates feel supported to do their best work, as themselves. And one thing we’ve noticed here about Microsoft Surface is that word spreads, quickly and organically. For employees who start using a Surface, they’re met with curiosity and intrigue from their colleagues. People who see one in use are drawn to it and start inquiring about how they might be able to use one themselves.

And while the aesthetics of Surface devices draw people in, what’s most noticeable is how people are using them in their work—in other words, Surface’s premium user experience.

Technology Designed to Unlock Possibilities Through a Seamless Experience

What does that mean, premium user experience?

Surface is a family of powerful tablets, PCs, and interactive whiteboards, designed to integrate and work as a flexible, seamless system and deliver an experience where the device doesn’t get in between the user and their productivity. Microsoft designs their Surface devices so they become almost transparent to the user—working naturally for everything you do, whether it’s a physical interaction or a software interaction. This focus is the result of their core philosophy that great user experience facilitates stronger ideas, more innovation, and better teamwork. Moreover, inclusivity is at the core of Microsoft's mission, ensuring that Surface devices empower every individual, regardless of their abilities, to maximize their potential in the workplace.

For example, on the newest Surface Laptops, they’ve implemented a one-touch lift on select models: you can place your Surface down on a desk and easily open the lid with one finger—the laptop won’t shift or move around on the table. Microsoft puts a great deal of thought, time, and engineering into the smallest details like this one, that remove as much friction as possible from your experience: instead of wrestling with a device as it skitters away across your desk, you lift your laptop lid, it opens, and you start working, just like that. You don’t lose an idea, a train of thought, or more than a second; you’re able to move seamlessly and in flow. On the same laptops, they’ve also integrated touch into the screens, making the device as transparent as possible to you by making it easier for you to simply interact naturally and intuitively.

Just a few of the other premium Surface benefits include:

Longer battery lives—up to 13.5 hours—and Fast Charging to take you from empty to full quicker, so you’re tied down to the charger less and your flow or your discussion isn’t interrupted by a low charge
Seamless transitions as you move around the office, home, coffee shop, or wherever you work best—from dock to laptop and back again, with easy connections to accessories like displays and headsets
Lightweight devices that make moving throughout your day and travel easy
Removable hard drives so you stay in control of your sensitive information
Easily replaceable major components to extend lifetime value and minimize downtime
Security designed into every layer, “from chip to cloud”

Another small design detail that makes a big impact in your experience: when you do undock, move your computer around, and unplug and reconnect your display, Windows 11 remembers how to rearrange your apps for you. It’s a little like memory seats in your car, designed to minimize the frequent interruptions that come with technology use, so they can best enable and support you.

Premium Experience Translates into a Long-Lasting Value

The popularity we see at Compugen, that extends from the premium Surface experience, we see with our clients too. For example, a large bilingual Canadian financial institution we’re allied with first approached us to provide their executives with Surface devices. They came to us with the common perception that, thanks to the Surface’s premium experience, they’re more expensive, so it wouldn’t make financial sense to provide their entire team with them.

But not only do the Surface devices save businesses money because they’re easier for IT teams to manage through Microsoft’s management software—a benefit so robust I’ll need another blog to address—but they also retain a higher lifetime value. Together, that means the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for Surface is lower than comparable premium devices.

And when you pair this with higher uptime and a seamless, premium, delightful user experience, there are tremendous benefits to providing Surface across your entire business.

For our financial institution client, this is exactly what they did: they’ve now standardized Surface for everyone across their organization.

Devices and Software Made for Each Other, to Elevate Your Work

For another client of ours, a national beverage retail chain, they needed to provide their store associates with mobile devices with maximized uptime, along with stellar user and management experience. Surface was the perfect solution for them.

This is one of the other keys to the premium Surface experience: because the device and the software (both for users and for IT management) are designed by the same company, they’re envisioning them being used together. They’re really made for each other, designed to work together as a single solution that delivers a simple, modern, secure, and collaborative environment that fosters interactivity and productivity.

So when you use Microsoft software on Surface devices, it’s really the epitome of a seamless work experience and one that’s really designed to support a hybrid work environment, whether that’s supporting employees as they move from office to home, as they collaborate remotely, as they work in the field, or even for something as simple as moving from meeting rooms to desks.

It also means that Surfaces are enabled with a lot of features, for example, in Teams, that other devices won’t have. When you use Surface, you’re also using Microsoft software at the height of its abilities: Surface devices will always be the first ones on the market to be able to fully use the latest and greatest of what Microsoft is rolling out for M365—and even when those features are eventually rolled out to

other devices, Surface devices will still always make them sing as though they were made for each other, because, after all, they were.

A Remarkably Collaborative Ally

At Compugen we like to say, technology is the conduit. Great people and great allies are the key to success.

We are fortunate to be so deeply connected with Microsoft that we were recently announced as Canada's Surface PC Reseller 2023 Microsoft Partner of the Year, as well as North American Surface PC Reseller Partner of the Year Award for 2023 and a Top 3 Finalist for the Global Surface PC Reseller 2023 Microsoft Partner of the Year Award for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology.

I am also honored to sit on a Partner Advisory Counsel at Microsoft for Surface, a global counsel of a handful of people that gives me the opportunity to have a direct connection with the team there.

This not only means that we are one of the first partners in the world to learn about Microsoft’s plans with Surface, their promos, and the programs they have available, it’s also a direct connection to bring them customer and partner feedback, helping them steer Surface based on real user experience and feedback. They are a tremendous ally for us, helping amplify our ability to support you: when you work with us, our allies become yours too. It’s a stellar example of humans across the world connecting and working together to lift each other up.