Have you ever walked into a meeting room and wished it was simpler to kick things off? I haven’t done the research but I’d be willing to wager a good amount of money that you have. I’m sure Lifesize would also take me up on this bet. Hence, they have announced new enhancements to the Lifesize Share platform to make it easier and more cost-effective for organisations to build and automate multifunctional meeting spaces.
Platform additions
New enhancements to the platform include:
- One-Touch Meetings: Use Bluetooth beacon technology to launch Lifesize room systems remotely and join meetings from recognised mobile devices
- Digital Signage: Present compelling content on connected screens in meeting rooms and around the office with support for ScreenCloud digital signage
- Automated Content Switching: Switch the in-room display from digital signage to a video call automatically, then return to digital signage when the call ends
- Whiteboard Capture: Capture and share whiteboard content, chronicling your entire session in real-time, with meeting participants anywhere using the Kaptivo whiteboard collaboration system
The current state of meeting rooms
Michael Helmbrecht, Chief Operations Officer at Lifesize, commented on the current state of the meeting room and video conferencing experience:
“According to Gartner, the average company uses at least four different communications and collaboration tools.”
“This causes frustration for business users coping with different solutions from one room to the next, and for IT departments who are desperate to create a more intuitive system for collaborative working. Traditionally, available solutions have required expensive integrations or customised programming, making it cost prohibitive to broadly deploy the tools employees want, particularly in smaller huddle rooms”.
Michael goes on to explain how Lifesize Share is changing the traditional, unproductive meeting room experience: “With Lifesize Share, customers are able to integrate new and existing solutions in their meeting spaces, with an intuitive interface and at a cost that makes it accessible for all room types. Additionally, through the Share platform, IT and business users can easily leverage solutions from Lifesize technology partners, enabling digital signage, digital whiteboards and ultrasonic laptop pairing – all of which can be seamlessly integrated into an existing configuration, saving customers time and money.”
Visual focus
Lifesize has recognised that visually the meeting and conferencing experience is hampered by lack of visuals. It’s one thing sharing a screen but often annotations and new versions are required. For the more graphically inclined, this often means turning to the whiteboard. I’ve experienced being sat on the end of a video conference squinting to make out the whiteboard at the end of the room. Productivity levels go down the drain and the meeting gets parked until everybody can meet face to face.
David Hsieh, Kaptivo CEO says – and I agree: “Sometimes in meetings, you just need to whiteboard your ideas, but whiteboards have been the odd man out of digital collaboration. Together with Kaptivo, Lifesize is simplifying the next generation of real-time, visual collaboration for any kind of meeting.”
For more information on Lifesize Share and to see Lifesize in action, Lifesize is attending Integrated Systems Europe and will be located in hall 11.
