If there’s one point of agreement that can unite workers across different industries, age groups, and countries, it’s this: Meetings suck. Today, Cisco is attempting to change that with a new product called the Spark Board, a $4,990 digital whiteboard and video conferencing system that aims to take some of pain out of teamwork, at a price point that will put it within reach of lots of companies.
Cisco, which is currently the market leader in enterprise collaboration products, earns $5 billion in annual revenue from its existing video-conferencing systems, telephones, and web conferencing and chat products. Its hardware, and products that compete with it, are a big business, but they also come with imposing price tags. It's possible to spend tens of thousands of dollars equipping a room with Cisco video-conferencing equipment; even Microsoft's Surface Hub—itself designed to undercut the cost conventional big-company video conferencing systems—starts at around $9,000. (Google plans to release its own smart whiteboard, the Jamboard, later this year for "under $6,000.")
