Independent research confirms SMART's corporate solutions
CALGARY, Alberta --- July 17, 2008 --- SMART Technologies announces that Wainhouse Research has published a white paper on the business benefits of new interactive products for meeting rooms. The research findings outlined in Bringing the Meeting Room into the Digital Age: New Approaches to Brainstorming and Group
Collaboration for 21st Century Meetings demonstrate that products such as SMART Board™ interactive whiteboards and interactive displays can be used to connect meeting rooms in different locations more effectively and inexpensively than other solutions. As a result, distributed team members can join a conference, share any application, write over it in digital ink and save their work as if everyone was in the same room.
In March and April 2008, Wainhouse Research, a well-respected independent research company, interviewed decision makers responsible for meeting room products. The interviewees worked at Fortune 2000 companies, universities and government agencies throughout North America and Europe. The findings confirm that SMART's new collaboration platforms enable faster decision making and improve team collaboration. The paper also concludes that SMART's new collaboration-focused products save time, and reduce travel and carbon footprints. SMART Meeting Pro, SMART Hub SE and SMART Hub PE combine with single or multiple SMART Board interactive whiteboards and interactive displays to create connected meeting rooms where distributed staff can easily set up a data conference, write in digital ink over applications, save their work, share applications and notes, and participate in face-to-face or remote discussions. The paper will be presented at the Wainhouse Research Collaboration Summit in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 17, 2008, and posted on Wainhouse's website at www.wainhouse.com/whitepapers and SMART's website at www.smarttech.com/corp.
"Based on interviews with real-world users, the timing is right for enterprises to take a new look at their meeting room technologies," says Alan Greenberg, senior analyst and partner at Wainhouse Research. "Wainhouse Research believes that the new solutions are an evolutionary step toward improved team collaboration and brainstorming, offering a new digitally driven paradigm for group work by freeing knowledge workers from the individual-based PC."
"Enterprises today are bringing their meeting rooms into the digital age," says Nancy Knowlton, SMART's CEO. "The Wainhouse Research white paper reinforces the benefits of SMART's collaboration platforms and demonstrates the impact that interactive products can have on achieving greater organizational efficiencies."
About Wainhouse Research
Wainhouse Research, www.wainhouse.com, is an independent market research firm that focuses on critical issues in the Unified Communications and rich media conferencing fields. The company conducts multi-client and custom research studies, consults with end users on key implementation issues, publishes white papers and market statistics, and delivers public and private seminars as well as speaker presentations at industry group meetings. Wainhouse Research publishes a variety of reports that cover the all aspects of rich media conferencing and the free newsletter, The Wainhouse Research Bulletin.
About SMART
SMART Technologies supplies ICT products that are suitable for interactive display applications and facilitate a more interactive, collaborative environment. Using SMART products, groups can access and share the information they need to meet, teach, train and present. SMART has been issued and maintains a broad portfolio of patents with numerous U.S., Canadian and other patents pending. SMART customers include NASA, Texas Instruments, BMW, Toyota Motors, DaimlerChrysler, Boeing, Lucent Technologies, NTT, the Los Angeles Lakers, Novartis, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Accenture, Procter & Gamble, British Telecom, Disney Imagineering and Harvard University.
SMART is a private company founded in 1987. Employing more than 1,200 people, SMART is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with assembly facilities in Ottawa, Ontario, and offices in Bonn, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai, New York City, Chicago and Washington, DC. In 1992, SMART formed a strategic alliance with Intel® Corporation that resulted in Intel's equity ownership in the company. SMART products are sold through dealers across North America and distributors worldwide. For more information, visit www.smarttech.com/corp.
