IWB Sales to Increase in 2013?

In the UK, IWB sales out-performed expectations in 2012 but it’s the business market which is generating the most excitement for 2013, says Paul Bray.

To the dismay of felt-tip pen manufacturers but the relief of almost everyone else, the interactive whiteboard (IWB) is rapidly becoming the teacher’s and presenter’s tool of choice.In the UK, IWB sales out-performed analysts’ expectations in 2012. Futuresource saw sales of interactive displays (mostly IWBs) in Q3 rise 18 per cent year-on-year, and expects the whole year to show a 10 per cent increase, making it the first growth year since 2005. Futuresource predicts fairly steady growth until at least 2016, from around 45,000 units pa to 55,000.

Handset sales for interactive voting systems also grew steadily in 2012, with Q3 sales eight per cent up year-on-year. Unit sales will continue to climb until 2015, although total values will be offset by falling unit prices.

According to Ian Curtis and Jean-Pascal Goninet, heads of northern/central and southern Europe respectively at vendor Promethean, European markets are showing marked variations in IWB and response system sales.

“Sales in southern Europe have been impacted by the challenging economic conditions, with education budgets impacted by austerity measures. And other markets, such as the Netherlands and Denmark, are approaching 65 per cent penetration of classrooms, so there’s an inevitable slowdown.

“But Finland’s strong interest in software-based assessment, coupled with positive results from a 20-school research project, has spurred new activity. And in France the new government has confirmed that its top priority is to bring schools into the digital era, including developing digital equipment for each class and each student.”

Schools are likely to remain the major IWB market, despite high existing penetration. “Although the UK’s Building Schools for the Future programme was abandoned there’s still significant new school construction (such as academies) and substantial re-building programmes within schools,” says Futuresource’s Colin Messenger.

“With sales of IWBs dating back almost 10 years and with presence in around 70 per cent of all UK educational establishments, we’re now entering a phase of replacing IWBs as the original installations reach end of life,” adds Martin Large, ceo of Smart IWB distributor, Steljes.
Large believes schools also represent an opportunity for a greater penetration of response systems as they seek to improve learning outcomes through greater use of interactivity.

Corporate opportunity
But it is the business market that is generating most excitement.

“There’s a huge corporate market opportunity with 67 million meeting rooms worldwide and collaborative meetings being a hot topic,” says Messenger. “The corporate space is receiving attention from the major interactive display vendors such as Samsung, Sharp, InFocus and Philips.

“With major corporates focusing on reducing travel because of costs and environmental issues, linking with video conferencing will be in much greater demand.

“The tablet craze is also having a strong effect in corporates, with many companies interested in integrated collaborative meeting room solutions. Windows 8 is expected to be a key catalyst for this market, with the touch friendly operating system leading to many new usage models,” he adds.

By 2016, corporates will account for almost a quarter of global interactive display sales (a third in the UK), Futuresource predicts. And a survey for response system vendor IML found that 99.9 percent of respondents had used audience response technology at some time.
“Understanding the wealth of knowledge and insight they receive from clients, prospects and employees appears to be an increasing trend among senior managers,” says IML’s ceo, Richard Fisher. Unified collaboration and the need to mix communications channels and methodologies is a major driver of change, he maintains.

Integrating with UC platforms “makes it so much easier to collaborate, plan and document for continued action by everyone, especially long-distance participants,” adds Curtis.
Two-fifths of IML’s survey respondents said ease of use was the most important selection criterion for interactive event technology, followed by reliability and security. Enhanced functionality and free software are also drivers, Steljes finds.

Integration with both the vendor’s and third-party products is an increasing factor, says Curtis. Schools, for example, are keen to support BYOD (bring your own device) initiatives.
“What’s really critical for educators is that the software works on school- or student-owned devices and can be used on touch tablets, PCs and smartphones running Windows 8, Android or iOS,” he says.

Some voting applications are seeing a rising demand for touchscreen devices, but it depends on the nature of the audience interaction:“For events where documentation and content are critical, larger screens can be advantageous,” says Fisher who adds at a legal meeting where 100 per cent of the votes need to be captured, a keypad solution would be more appropriate.

There is a similar split in schools, with secondary and tertiary establishments adopting touch technology while early years and special needs tend to prefer simple, symbol-based handheld units, says Large.However, a predicted challenge to IWBs from cheaper projector-based systems does not seem to have materialised, at least in the UK.

Although projectors are a good solution for buyers with budget or space constraints, most schools tend to prefer IWBs because they have more experience of them, says Large