Hybrid meetings the way forward with new portfolio in market

Barco has announced the expansion of its hybrid meetings portfolio with the addition of the ClickShare Present range, designed to enable businesses to prepare for a smooth return to the office and step into the new reality of the hybrid workplace.

Completing the company's recently announced wireless conferencing range are two new models of Barco's wireless presentation and collaboration solution, ClickShare Present, with the organisation now offering customers the freedom to equip hybrid meeting rooms according to their own requirements, existing ecosystems, and company IT policies.  

The new ClickShare Present range consists of two different models for wireless presentation in existing VC rooms. According to Barco, the entry C-5 is ideally suited for huddle spaces and small meeting rooms, offering the key functionalities of wireless 4K content sharing.

The high-end C-10 is a companion for interactive collaboration in any meeting space and adds enhanced video performance and a set of interactivity features such as touch back support, moderation, blackboarding and annotation.

"There's no going back to the way we worked before," says George Stromeyer, senior VP and GM Enterprise, Barco.

"We are no longer prepared to slog to every meeting in person. At the same time, the virtual meeting has its shortcomings too," he says.

"Instead, we are providing hybrid, a seamless blend of the physical and the virtual, of in-office and remote."

Stromeyer says mixed working and collaboration solutions like ClickShare "take centre stage in this new era".

"Barco reinforces the capabilities of high-end video technology and brings meeting participants closer together. ClickShare enables seamless, highly engaged collaboration no matter where employees are working,' he says.

"With a full range of wireless solutions, Barco encourages businesses to re-enter the hybrid workplace safely and effectively and offers exactly that technology that fully matches their business and IT requirements. ClickShare puts the employee at the heart and fosters both engagement and connectivity."

Stromeyer says that in the past, technology has tried to recreate real life meetings. However, he reminds people that in-person meetings are not always perfect.

"At Barco, we have a different approach. We start with people and how every person can be at their very best - engage, agile, fully involved and inspiring each other," he says.

"Only then we create the tech that makes that happen."

Olivier Croly, vice president for APAC, Barco, says the Clickshare wireless presentation and conferencing hub makes hybrid collaboration seamless.

"No matter where we are - in the Barco Experience Centre in Sydney or at our workstation at home, all we need is one click to start collaborating and share content," he says.

"Participants can engage in an immersive conferencing experience in a matter of seconds," he says.

"With the introduction of ClickShare Present to the meeting room ecosystem, Barco now offers a solution for any customer wanting to turn existing conference rooms into fully equipped hybrid collaboration rooms," Croly says.

"ClickShare Present is a seamless extension to wirelessly share content in your existing meeting room setup. Customers with existing Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Webex conference rooms can benefit from adding easy, wireless content sharing. ClickShare completes the collaborative experience with full BYOD, interactivity features and workflow integration. The focus shifts from mainly conferencing to true hybrid collaboration."

ClickShare Conference gives users the freedom to organise hybrid meetings the way they want and where they want. They host calls from their laptop, use their preferred UC-C platform, and wirelessly connect to the meeting room display and AV peripherals. Any meeting room can easily be redesigned into a wireless hybrid meeting room by adding ClickShare Conference.

ClickShare offers IT managers the freedom to choose between plug - play collaboration with the ClickShare Button or workflow optimisation with the ClickShare Desktop App. Both empower hybrid meetings through the same, simple, intuitive experience, Barco says.

The Button is an instant plug-in for both employees and guests, while the App can be pushed through an MSI to all employee laptops.

"ClickShare is the perfect match for any digital workplace strategy. Touch or touchless, Button or App. It is the customers' way of working, the customers decision," the organisation says.