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Zoom unveils its Revamped Whiteboard Tool

Video conferencing company Zoom has revamped its Whiteboard product to work on a wider variety of devices and apps. Whiteboard builds on the existing basic in-meeting whiteboard functionality and extends it to a variety of devices, including in a browser or via apps for tablets or desktops. It also integrates with Zoom’s Meetings and Rooms tools for touch devices such as the DTEN D7 and Neat Board, and will soon be compatible with Chat.

Oded Gal, chief product officer at Zoom, said adding features like Whiteboard to its platform should better support customers adapting to emerging ways of working. “Whiteboard empowers teams with the power of continuous communication in an easy-to-use solution that provides a virtual space to collaborate before, during and after a meeting,” he said. The Whiteboard update was first shown at Zoomtopia 2021, but it’s only available to customers now.

What to do with Whiteboard?
Zoom Whiteboard works as a visual collaboration tool, giving onsite and remote teams a space to capture ideas in real time and asynchronously. Whiteboard’s latest features include advanced shapes and connectors, adding, dragging and dropping images, while sticky notes and messages can be used to highlight important ideas. Newly created canvases can be integrated into existing workflows in video and meeting spaces. Whiteboard can be shared internally or externally with anyone with a Zoom account, with the ability to export and save.

Wayne Kurtzman, IDC research director for social media and collaboration, said the Whiteboard refresh for Zoom puts it on a more competitive path than before, making the tool more useful and easier to use, while by creating persistent content that can easily be transferred from one device to another. “Instead of tying content to a room to support existing Zoom products, content is tied to a person as the content owner. It’s much more user-centric,” he said. “While not yet rivaling the visual collaboration leaders in terms of features, visual collaboration will remain a critical area for vendors to advance features over the next few years.”

The proliferation of whiteboard technology
As Mr. Kurtzman noted, Zoom isn’t the only platform to launch or improve its whiteboard technology recently, in the post-pandemic rush to hybrid work models. Over the past few months, Box, ClickUp, Mural and BlueJeans, to name a few, have all made similar announcements. According to Kurtzman, the sudden abundance of whiteboard apps is a recognition of the success of pure play providers like Miro and Mural, which make collaboration more visual.

“People are becoming more visual and want to collaborate and express their ideas with the same ease as they do in consumer apps,” he said. “Visual collaboration, like collaboration, is not just for internal use. Good community managers can drive engagement from partners, customers, and internal teams to improve the employee and customer experience.”

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