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Microsoft finalizes Perceptive Pixel purchase

Multitouch-display maker Perceptive Pixel is now officially part of the Office family. And making meetings better is a big reason behind Microsoft's latest acquisition.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

That didn't take long: Just weeks after announcing its intention to purchase Perceptive Pixel, Microsoft officials said they've finalized the deal.
On July 30, via a post on "The Official Microsoft Blog," Microsoft officials said that all conditions for the acquisition of Perceptive Pixel have been met and "the deal is completed." Perceptive Pixel Founder Jeff Han is now a General Manager reporting to Microsoft Office President Kurt DelBene.
Microsoft announced intentions to buy the six-year-old high-performance multi-touch display maker Perceptive Pixel on July 9. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

perceptivepixelscreen

Perceptive Pixel's hardware currently sells in the $80,000 range. Microsoft officials said earlier this month they are exploring ways to make the displays more affordable, and that they are considering whether to use OEMs to produce the devices or whether to add these kinds of displays to the increasingly longer list of Microsoft-branded hardware.
Microsoft had been working on table-sized multitouch tables -- formerly known as Surface, but now known as PixelSense -- for the past few years. The latest version of those table/kiosk-size devices are made by Samsung.
If you're wondering why Perceptive Pixel is being folded into the Office division instead of one of Microsoft's hardware units, the answer is in the word "meetings."
Back in early 2011, when discussing Office futures with members of the press, DelBene noted that Microsoft had "a major investment around making meetings great." He said at that time that Microsoft has done work on every phase of meetings -- from Outlook invitations, to notetaking (with OneNote), to broadcasting (using PowerPoint).
In early July at the Worldwide Partner Conference where the Perceptive Pixel acquisition was announced, officials from Perceptive Pixel demonstrated a Windows 8-based demonstration of OneNote, Microsoft's electronic note-taking app, on a large screen on stage. They also showed off an ad-hoc collaboration called Storyboard on the large multitouch screen. Officials emphasized Skype and Lync also would be good applications to show off on the new hardware.
CEO Steve Ballmer has been using a Perceptive Pixel display in his office at Microsoft since February 2012, Han told me at the show.

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