Ricoh D-Series
Not a name that typically crops up here at No Jitter, Ricoh is an electronics firm I associate with printers and projectors. But it turns out that making projectors gives manufacturers a fairly direct entrée into the market for interactive whiteboards. I mean, if loads of companies have put your projectors in conference rooms so people can share content, why not also sell them other gadgets that can share content in conference rooms?
Ricoh released its first interactive whiteboard in 2014 -- a 55-in. model that could network with up to three other devices, as well as let dozens of others remotely view the content being shared and annotated on the devices.
This has since expanded into a portfolio of four units of varying sizes for different-sized meeting rooms. There are other differences across the models besides the size of the display. The newer 84-in. and 22-in. devices support more touchpoints (10) compared with the older 65-in. and 55-in. models. And the 84 in. has a screen with 4K resolution, higher than what the other devices are capable of.
Also interesting are differences in how the devices support video conferencing. The D2200 is the only fully integrated all-in-one device. It has a fully integrated wide-angle webcam and internal front-facing speakers, so it's ready to go as a video conferencing endpoint. The other models, on the other hand, require external components. Ricoh prefers customers to use its P3500 "Unified Communications System," with its curious, pop-up webcam, and its Cloud Meeting Service (which seems to be powered by Vidyo). But it's entirely possible to use third-party video devices, systems, and services with the D-Series whiteboards.
