Back in June, Polycom introduced the world to Pano, a collaboration solution that, in the words of Polycom CEO Mary McDowell, “makes content sharing easy and fits into any ecosystem or environment.” Wainhouse Research recently took Polycom Pano out for a spin to test the company’s claims. It should come as no surprise, given Polycom’s reputation, that Pano passed with flying colors. But let’s take a closer look at the results.
Installation
Polycom is positioning Pano as a content-sharing solution that eliminates all barriers to collaboration, and as such, it should be exceedingly simple to integrate the Pano into existing environments. And, indeed, it is. According to the Wainhouse researchers, it took less than ten minutes to install Pano, as the system requires only power, a network, and a single HDMI connection. With the help of a setup wizard, getting Polycom Pano up and running is about as easy as hooking up a Blu-ray player. And anyone can do that.
Wireless Presentation
Polycom Pano is designed to allow users of all devices--tablets, mobile phones, Windows PCs, Macs--to share content wirelessly. To test this capability, the researchers experimented with the Pano App (with Windows and Mac PCs), AirPlay (with iPhone, iPad and Macbook Air) and Miracast (with Android devices). All three wireless connection options either met or exceeded expectations. The researchers were especially impressed with Pano’s leveraging of AirPlay, which adds features like orientation awareness and audio-sharing capabilities.
Whiteboard
Pano is a simple and intuitive collaboration solution, but that doesn’t mean it skimps on blockbuster features. One of its primary selling points is a whiteboard feature, and Wainhouse put it to the test. Boasting three pen sizes, six pen colors, a magic highlighter and an advanced eraser function, among other things, Pano’s whiteboard offers a multitude of options for brainstorming sessions. With a Polycom-approved Sharp touch display, the researchers found the whiteboard to be incredibly responsive, with a low delay and gesture controls that make for intuitive and immediate image manipulation.
Annotation
In addition to the whiteboard function, Pano gives users expanded annotation capabilities. Wainhouse were pleased by the annotation controls, but they were especially impressed by the ability to annotate over live and screenshot images, as opposed to static images only. In essence, the annotation feature takes the power of the whiteboard controls and applies it to pretty much any image currently displayed on screen.
Conclusion
After all was said and done, the researchers found Pano to be a “well performing presentation solution...[that] should be right at home in almost any meeting room.” Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.
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