Dive Brief:
- Google introduced Jamboard, a digital, cloud-based whiteboard on Tuesday.
- The television-sized tool that can be mounted on the wall for meetings and presentations allows workers to connect data and apps from mobile and personal devices to a large screen.
- Jamboard comes with 55-inch 4k display, built-in HD camera, speakers and Wi-Fi and will sell for less than $6,000.
Dive Insight:
Jamboard makes it "easy for your team to share ideas in real-time and create without boundaries," wrote TJ Varghese, Jamboard product manager, in a blog.
The high-tech whiteboard allows workers to collaborate from anywhere on other Jamboards or remotely use the smartphone or tablet companion app. Workers can also pull in data from the internet or from G Suite. Jamboard data resides in the cloud in Google Drive, so workers can then share what they’ve created or come back to iterate at anytime.
This is Google's answer to a device that is already on the market. Microsoft began shipping a similar product, called Microsoft Surface Hub, earlier this year. Both Microsoft and Google are trying to make team collaboration easier, a space where currently only a few companies produce a range of devices.
As Fortune notes, this is also one of Google's first big enterprise hardware pushes since it sunset its sunshine yellow enterprise search box earlier this year. Hardware will not likely be a priority for the company unless its offered in concert with some of its software products.
