Crestron announces it started shipping the Mercury-- a tabletop meeting and collaboration system one can describe as a conferencing phone with a built-in Crestron AirMedia wireless presentation gateway.

Thus, customers can use it to collaborate with users in far-sites or locally as a presentation gateway for wireless content. Mercury makes calls from either mobile device (cloud-codec) or any standard SIP phone system, and it includes both built-in mice and speakers to act as a speaker phone.

The collaboration parts of Crestron Mercury from a laptop or dedicated in-room PC can be handled via any soft phone, web conferencing or UC application such as Skype for Business, Cisco WebEx, GotoMeeting or Slack. A built-in occupancy sensor enables facility managers to collect usage data, driving efficient room use. Enterprise security standards are included.

The TechLogix SMP is a table-top wired collaboration system one can describe as a presentation switcher, HDBaseT extender and display controller rolled into a single hub devices.

Part of the Show-Me series, the SMP comes in digital and analog + digital models. It provides a single all-in-one interface for meeting rooms, huddle rooms and other collaborative environments, with the table-top hub designed for quick installation and intuitive end-user use.

Connectivity comes through HDMI and VGA ports, while built-in control handles source selection, display on/off and display volumes. An IR learning window and power-over-twisted pair power circuit are included.

Yamaha announces the CS-700-- an all-in-one collaboration solution aimed at huddle room use, with a big focus on audio through the addition of Revolabs microphone technology.

The CS-700 features a beamforming microphone array, four speakers and an integrated USB port for connection to any software-based codec, including Microsoft Skype for Business, Cisco Spark, GoToConference, Google Chromebox for Meetings, Vidyo, WebEx, Zoom, BlueJeans and many others. A wide-angle video camera captures all meeting participants in the room, and Yamaha says a special optical solution ensires a high "pixel-per-face" resolution necessary for participants to recognise nuanced facial expressions.

Google announces the Jamboard-- the first hardware product from the rebranded G Suite of cloud-based tools-- should ship on 20 May 2017 with a $5000 pricetag (plus $600 annual service contract per board).

Sold by BenQ in most of the world, the Jamboard is an portable 55-inch 4K (3840 x 2160) resolution collaboration board. It stands on 4 wheels, making it portable, and is integrated with the G Suite email, videoconferencing, cloud collaboration, device management and file sharing applications. Users can pull in work from Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, or add photos stored in Drive.