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There’s a tech battle brewing over whiteboards that cost thousands of dollars

Google has designed the giant touch-screen canvas, called “Jamboard,” for companies trying to make it easier for their employees to brainstorm as they work on team projects and other assignments. (Associated Press)
Washington Post

The latest product to be unveiled by tech giant Google was not a new smartphone or wearable device or search feature designed to be used by millions of everyday consumers. Rather, it was a $6,000 whiteboard designed to be used in your office conference room.

The release of Jamboard puts the Silicon Valley behemoth into the niche but increasingly competitive market of interactive whiteboards, the high-tech equivalent of those dry-erase boards that employees use to scrawl out diagrams, lead presentations or brainstorm new ideas.

Microsoft and Google have both gotten into the interactive whiteboard market this year, creating new competition for the largest and most entrenched player, Smart Technologies, a Canadian firm recently acquired by Foxconn.

Though commonplace today, the standard whiteboard is an innovation itself. Popularized in the late 1980s and 1990s, the whiteboard has, in many instances, replaced the dusty blackboard that always left hands, clothes and floors coated in a thin layer of chalk residue.

The digital whiteboard is a more modern invention and it continues to evolve.

Smart Technologies takes credit for creating the first interactive whiteboard in 1991. Chief Technology Officer Warren Barkley said those devices were primarily large display devices that used projectors and had maybe one or two touch points. Today, interactive whiteboards come with high-tech LED touch screens whose ease of use more closely resembles a tablet computer.

Google’s Jamboard is a 55-inch, touch-screen monitor that connects to the cloud and taps into Google’s G Suite of productivity apps, including Google Drive, Docs and Calendar. Equipped with machine learning technology, the board is marketed as a tool for companies to make information gathering and brainstorming more seamless.

Google also faces stiff competition in the workplace technology market, said Vanessa Thompson, a research analyst at IDC, a market research firm specializing in technology.

In March, Microsoft began shipping its own interactive whiteboard, called Surface Hub. Much as Jamboard integrates with Google’s other products, Surface Hub integrates with Microsoft’s established slate of workplace software, including Skype and Microsoft Office. The 55-inch Surface Hub sells for $8,999, and the 84-inch version goes for $21,999.