Interactive Whiteboards recently hit the $1 billion mark in worldwide installations for 2008, and it appears that the current industry leaders are in for some competition from new manufacturers looking for their own piece of a growing pie. The latest contestant: Mead, which is releasing the plainly named Mead Interactive Whiteboard according to an article from Campus Technology. The main features include a 77” projection screen, multimedia pen, Windows-compatibility, and an education-oriented software package.
So what’s significant about the new interactive whiteboard? Mead makes notebooks, office supplies, and the well-known TrapperKeeper, all of which were mainstays in my bookbag back in middle school. But I never remember Mead even coming out with a regular white board, let alone an interactive whiteboard. Whatever the rationale, I’m inclined to see this product release as another sign of the growing popularity of interactive whiteboards among educators, as well as Mead’s acknowledgment that going digital can be a wise move for any manufacturer in the age of computers and the Internet. It looks like an interesting board with a competitive feature set, but only time will tell whether the market incumbents have built up enough brand recognition to snuff out the latest challenge to their supremacy.
Posted by Taeho Lim
