back to article Microsoft bids adieu to inky fingers with whiteboard app

Microsoft has made its Whiteboard Windows 10 app generally available in a move that Redmond hopes will see an end to dried-out marker pens and inky fingers. In preview since December 2017, the ‘free-form, intelligent canvas’ represents an excellent opportunity for a game of buzzword bingo, with ‘ideation’ taking the honours in …

  1. Mark 85
    Unhappy

    ‘ideation’ ?

    We've hit a new low in buzzwords. I think someone needs a stiff beverage.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Re: ‘ideation’ ?

      Irregardless, this is the the new way to conversate and expresso a whole nother way of communicating.

      Are there better words, maybe been done another way before? ...Sure

      But once you've "idea-ated" you're never the same again.

    2. SVV

      Re: ‘ideation’ ?

      But how will Office 365 facilitate this beveration?

      1. Rafael #872397
        Trollface

        Re:But how will Office 365 facilitate this beveration?

        You'ved misspelered 'bomination.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ‘ideation’ ?

      It is a phrased used quite a lot in psyche, as in 'the patient has suicidal ideation'.

      Perhaps it is appropriate in this case. :)

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: ‘ideation’ ?

        Yeah, but whose psyche? Would you take them home to meet your DearOldMum?

    4. Joe Werner Silver badge

      Re: ‘ideation’ ?

      BS to English: brainstorming

      Look at one of the last BOFH....

    5. hplasm
      Facepalm

      Re: ‘ideation’ ?

      "We've hit a new low in buzzwords. "

      True.

      "I think someone needs a stiff beating."

      FTFY

  2. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Meh

    Yeah, so...

    ... They've reinvented the Lync whiteboard outside of Lync.

    Why do US megacorps have to invent the same wheel ten times? See also: all of Google's chat apps.

  3. steelpillow Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    About time too

    How it pains me to say so, but Microsoft actually deserve credit for this. Ever since giant touchscreens appeared, integrating a decent whiteboard app into the MS Office environment has been an utter no-brainer. Here we are, maybe ten years down the line, and MS have finally woken up and smelled the coffee.

    1. Youngone Silver badge

      Re: About time too

      In my career supporting various bits of gear loosely termed "IT" I have thrown away several "smart" whiteboards, due to lack of use.

      Everyone seems to think they are a great idea and will make meeting so much more productive. Someone else finds $15,000 or so from the capex budget, and the thing is purchased.

      Several years later a third person realises it has been used exactly once and I am called in to take it off the wall and send it to the recyclers.

      If you want one, I have one in my store room.

      1. steelpillow Silver badge

        Re: About time too

        " I have thrown away several "smart" whiteboards ... If you want one, I have one in my store room."

        >SHUDDER!<

        The touchscreen monitor is 120% of the value here.

        Have you ever tried pulling up Google Maps and comparing routes to TGI Friday vs. Wetherspoons on a smart whiteboard, then emailing the marked-up map to your team mailbox?

  4. jake Silver badge

    Let me get this right ...

    MS expects my R&D bull-session whiteboard scribblings to be held on Redmond computers? Somehow I don't think that is a very good idea. I'll pass, thanks.

  5. Swiss Anton

    Collaboration is the name of the game

    I want more collaboration .... nah only kidding, I just want to get on with doing my job. I don't care what Delores in marketing is thinking. Her ideas are always Crap! (BTW. Delores isn't her real name)

  6. jake Silver badge

    Sounds to me like ...

    ... what you actually want is more collaboration with the person not named Deloris. Perhaps a quick chat over a cup of office coffee will start the ball rolling?

  7. Joe Werner Silver badge

    Chalk!

    Flying your colleague in, chatting at a real blackboard and then having some hopped fermented grain beverages.

    That's how you do it. Don't settle for less!

    (Of course you need to photograph the blackboard, but that's manageable)

  8. OffBeatMammal

    I wonder some of these smarts - shape recognition etc - will make their way to OneNote? I have pretty terrible drawing skills so having something that can automagically improve the quality of my scribbles would be very handy (though an iPad would still be my preferred device!)

  9. a_yank_lurker

    Mostly Pointless

    Most effective real time collaboration is done verbally, you need to talk with them so they can ask questions in real time. Drawing pictures, etc is helpful but not usually critical as it is the content of the conversation that is important which can summarized by an email to all participants. It seems as if the marketing buffoons at Slurp are trying to find a product to justify their pointless salaries.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We expect a lot of use of this app on the Surface Hubs and peeps at home able to join

    1. jake Silver badge

      Marshmallow birds?

      You have marshmallow birds lined up to use this MS offering? Makes sense. It's a toy operating system, after all.

  11. thondwe

    OneNote - Collaboration with Inky Stuff? Full Page Mode? Inky SketchPad thing? So another separate App for Whiteboard notes - Hello??? Clearly there's people in MS who don't like OneNote still?

  12. DJV Silver badge

    "You’ll need a Microsoft account to use the app"

    Absolutely nope, then...

  13. MachDiamond Silver badge

    My cold dead fingers

    The best thing about a big whiteboard is the space. I can see how something is evolving or point back at something developed earlier. Once something looks like it fairly well thrashed out, I take a picture with my phone and if it deserves it, I create an electronic document.

    Some tools are great for certain things. What I do on a White Board isn't something that can be done efficiently on a phone or tablet sized screen.

  14. 0laf
    Mushroom

    Ideation

    The room where that word was groupthought needs fitted with a hydrogen cyanide system. With big red buttons outside and in. Then anyone who hears that shit can do away with the oxygen thieves in the room of then can off themselves in the unlikely event they become self-aware that they have become vacuous empty shells no more than a mockery of the humans they were born.

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