$5,000 Google Jamboard Dies In 2024 -- Cloud-Based Apps Will Stop Working, Too (arstechnica.com) 40
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Even more Google products are getting the ax this week. Next up is Google Jamboard, a $5,000 digital whiteboard (and its $600-a-year fee) and software ecosystem marketed to schools and corporations. Google has a new post detailing the "Next phase of digital whiteboarding for Google Workspace," and the future for Jamboard is that there is no future. In "late 2024," the whole project will shut down, and we don't just mean the hardware will stop being for sale; the cloud-based apps will stop working, too.
Most people probably haven't ever heard of Jamboard, but this was a giant 55-inch, 4K touchscreen on a rolling stand that launched in 2016. Like most Google touchscreens, this ran Android with a locked-down custom interface on top instead of the usual phone interface. The digital whiteboard could be drawn on using the included stylus or your fingers, and it even came with a big plastic "eraser" that would remove items. The SoC was an Nvidia Jetson TX1 (a quad-core Cortex-A57 CPU attached to a beefy Maxwell GPU), and it had a built-in camera, microphone, and speakers for video calls. There was HDMI input and Google cast support, and it came in whimsical colors like red, gray, and blue (it feels like Google was going for an iMac rainbow and quit halfway). "We're grateful to the consumers, educators, students, and businesses who have used Jamboard since its launch in 2016," says Google. "While Jamboard users make up a small portion of our Workspace customer base, we understand that this change will impact some of you, and we're committed to helping you transition..."
"Over the coming months, we'll provide Jamboard app users and admins clear paths to retain their Jamboard data or migrate it," Google tells users in its blog post. Third-party options include Figma's FigJam, Lucid Software's Lucidspark, and Miro.
Ars Technica notes: "[T]he whole cloud system is going down, too, so all of your existing $5,000 whiteboards will soon be useless, and you won't be able to open the cloud data on other devices."
Most people probably haven't ever heard of Jamboard, but this was a giant 55-inch, 4K touchscreen on a rolling stand that launched in 2016. Like most Google touchscreens, this ran Android with a locked-down custom interface on top instead of the usual phone interface. The digital whiteboard could be drawn on using the included stylus or your fingers, and it even came with a big plastic "eraser" that would remove items. The SoC was an Nvidia Jetson TX1 (a quad-core Cortex-A57 CPU attached to a beefy Maxwell GPU), and it had a built-in camera, microphone, and speakers for video calls. There was HDMI input and Google cast support, and it came in whimsical colors like red, gray, and blue (it feels like Google was going for an iMac rainbow and quit halfway). "We're grateful to the consumers, educators, students, and businesses who have used Jamboard since its launch in 2016," says Google. "While Jamboard users make up a small portion of our Workspace customer base, we understand that this change will impact some of you, and we're committed to helping you transition..."
"Over the coming months, we'll provide Jamboard app users and admins clear paths to retain their Jamboard data or migrate it," Google tells users in its blog post. Third-party options include Figma's FigJam, Lucid Software's Lucidspark, and Miro.
Ars Technica notes: "[T]he whole cloud system is going down, too, so all of your existing $5,000 whiteboards will soon be useless, and you won't be able to open the cloud data on other devices."
what about let's users install there own os on the (Score:3)
what about let's users install there own os on them?
Or let's it run forever with no year fee and local logins only?
Re:what about let's users install there own os on (Score:5, Interesting)
Any other company would sell the business to someone else to run. I'm sure someone could make a go of it. Just because Google is too big for a small market like that doesn't mean that it's impossible to make some money on it.
Re: (Score:2)
There is hope, they did release a firmware update for their defunct Stadia controller to make it into a normal Bluetooth device, usable with most consoles and computers.
Some cheap Jamboards might be hitting the market soon. They are kinda interesting, but probably use a fair bit of power for hobby stuff like showing calendar/weather. I want to build something like that, but with a large ePaper display.
This is why I never use google... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a rule. We don't use Google products or services. Period. (Anything other than search or adwords).
It will just be shutdown and shitcanned in 12-24 months and we'll have to replace it. So let's just skip that and use the replacement from the beginning.
Google has a finish-line problem. Once they get to the finish line they quit. They know how to create a product, but not how to operate it as a business once its launched.
Re:This is why I never use google... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not 100% convinced there isn't a method to this madness. I mean, a product like this board would be red meat to a sales force. I wonder what theirs looks like? I know the MSFT one was robust and aggressive. Is it possible that Google just refuses to kowtow to a sales force? I mean, like them or not, they keep the business within certain bounds, working on salable stuff, in most companies.
Re:This is why I never use google... (Score:5, Interesting)
Former Googler here, from before it became Alphabet.
When I worked there, Google was proud to be a company run by engineers and not by sales, and sales was pretty much non-existent.
One of Google problems is that their ad revenues from their main projects is so profitable that they have a huge amount of disposable money that they need to re-invest on R&D, any R&D. Next issue is that the internal politics and promotions are all based around doing new things and there is very little professional growth to be expected for making a product actually work well and be usable by the general public.
The devs that built the product will switch to a newer project within 2 years of product launch to go on an other project that is promotion worthy while the remaining staff gets no hope of recognition.
This is why you see all these product announcements, that are just experiments that are thrown at the wall, some will stick (GMail, GCal, Maps, Chrome, ...), but if they do not get massively profitable they get no TLC from the better staff and they get canned.
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Thank you for that. This makes a lot of sense.
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Re: This is why I never use google... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Not a hard call, KNOWING that whatever you buy will be orphaned in a few years.
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It's easier to get promoted by "making hard calls" than by keeping the lights on.
Or, as Barney Stinson once said: Someone who seems like a bold risk-taker but doesn't do anything because doing things gets you fired.
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If you work in or adjacent to education, as I do, you don't really have a choice about working with Google products. :(
The fear of being left high and dry by them has filtered down enough to the unwashed masses that our tech adverse CEO now understands IT's hesitation. That's in spite of Google being free (to us / non-profit + education) vs. all the alternatives costing non-zero amounts of money. Not really sure what Google's move here is but I know I'm one e-mail from them away from having my profession
Free? (Score:2)
I thought TFA claims this costs serious coin, $5000 for the hardware and $600/year for the software subscription?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Free? (Score:2)
That was the retail cost, in reality it was a one time fee if you already had Google for Education.
Re:This is why I never use google... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's because their real business is to spy on you and sell your data. I bet most of these cancelled projects just weren't popular enough to capture enough saleable data, and probably operated at a huge loss.
Re: This is why I never use google... (Score:2)
Why would anyone invest in Google platforms? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't know why anyone would invest in developing for Google's platforms.
How many times does google have to pull the rug out from under people before people just stop investing in their stuff?
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Honestly, 8 years of support is actually somewhat impressive for a Google product, especially one that uses Android.
The original Google Home also came out in 2016. I wonder when that device will be EOL'd along with the Home Mini's that came out a year later?
The list just keeps growing (Score:5, Informative)
The folks over at killedbygoogle.com [killedbygoogle.com] have been real busy this year.
Big Board (Score:2)
Is that what Steve Kornacki uses?
It's just sad. (Score:2)
Amazon does a better job of supporting their products than Google does.
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Not fixing bugs is still better than pulling the plug completely on $5k hardware. My Kindle Paperwhite from 2012 still works just fine even if the OS upgrades ended years ago.
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Not to mention that if you complain to your AWS TAM about the bug, they'll try to blame you for it and refuse to pay for any hosting charges that you might have accrued while troubleshooting the issue. Been there, done that.
Feels like 1994 (Score:3)
Around then a professor I worked for bought a similar big screen thing except it obviously didn't have mobile apps or 4k but it did support unit to unit video/sound over the net for video conferencing. IIRC it was about 50k per unit.
And no one used it.
Re: Feels like 1994 (Score:1)
Iâ(TM)ve seen âoesmart whiteboardsâ in numerous businesses Iâ(TM)ve visited. Iâ(TM)m sure they were sold with all sorts of grand ideas of collaboration, but NONE of them appeared to have gotten any use since the day they were installed - if they ever worked at all. This is just another (expensive) variant on the theme, and was a waste of money from day one.
Iâ(TM)ve used them (Score:2)
One place I worked installed them around 2010. They used a projector and some system for tracking the "pens". The main use case they justified it with was meetings between developers in the London and Sydney offices. Of course, they removed the regular whiteboards from the big meeting rooms, so you had to use it for purely local meetings, too.
It actually did work reasonably well. The biggest issues were that you'd obscure parts of the image in your shadow (since it used a projector), and there was a bit
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White boards that could print themselves were useful. Then we all got cell phones with cameras.
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Around then a professor I worked for bought a similar big screen thing
At least it won't just stop working at an arbitrary date when its vendor drops the product.
Given it required a subscription... (Score:2)
Of course the devices are going to stop working when the product is EOLed. Probably the bootloader is locked too - so good luck trying to hack it.
Just mirror an iPad. (Score:2)
I remember when there were some professional developments pushing Jamboard onto teachers, and I thought NOPE. Google is a seriously unreliable company, I figured they'd screw their Jamboard userbase. Called it.
As for smartboards: it's far more effective to just mirror an iPad with OneNote or something. Then you can walk around the class and monitor while writing. Also, it isn't $5,000.
High and Dry (Score:2)
School budgets are 12-18 months out so this is a major dick move to yank working whiteboards with 3 months' notice. And, personally I'm in the 'chalk is fine' camp, but really now.
Maybe the maintenance team quit due to their increasingly hostile work environment?
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Does your chalk board have AI and block chain?
How will the kids learn if they don't have AI and block chain white boards?!?!
Jfc, think of the children!
Customers can now refer to it as... (Score:2)
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This is a good analysis and likely the real explanation behind Google's bizarre habit of creating and killing everything.
Because screens in classrooms are... (Score:2)
Sometimes digital technologies used in the right ways for the right things with the right students can be beneficial but more often than not, they aren't. Technology for its own sake is a very poor pedagogical decision.