The collaboration tool offers some forward-thinking ways of sharing information from various sources, but never gained traction. Although it's being sunsetted, some of those features met yet show up in Office or other suites. Credit: Computerworld Admit it: You’ve never heard of GigJam. The Microsoft collaboration tool, which has been flying under the radar for the last 18 months or so, offers forward-thinking ways of sharing information between workers in real time from various sources – everything from Office 365 to LinkedIn, Dropbox, Salesforce and Trello. As Computerworld Senior Writer Lucas Mearian explained to Executive Editor Ken Mingis, information a user wants to share is circled in GigJam and passed along to others on the same project. And info that needs to be hidden can be crossed out, blocking its access by other GigJam users. The GigJam UI works using a keyboard and mouse, and can also be enabled through touch and voice input. It remains available for Windows, Mac and iOS users. But that’s going to change next month. Microsoft earlier this week announced it plans to shutter the tool on Sept. 22. The company said little in a blog post about the rationale behind its decision. Analysts, however, argued that GigJam never quite found the right audience, since it offered collaboration in ways workers weren’t used to. Alan Lepofsky, principal analyst at Constellation Research, earlier this week called GigJam “an incredibly bold and powerful concept. [But] it didn’t have a metaphor that people could easily relate to. It was not file sharing, web conferencing, or social networking. It was a new way to work.” For its part, Microsoft argued that it gleaned “insights” from the beta testing that could “inform future product experiences.” In other words, while GigJam is going away, the world of collaboration remains robust, and some of the tool’s features may well show up in future Microsoft products. For an audio podcast only, click play (or catch up on all earlier episodes) below. Or you can find us on iTunes, where you can download each episode and listen at your leisure. Happy listening, and please, send feedback or suggestions for future topics to us. We’d love to hear from you. Related content news analysis Apple earnings: About that iPhone 'slump' in China Based on information from Thursday's earnings report, it seems that data pointing to an iPhone slump in China were over-baked. By Jonny Evans May 03, 2024 9 mins iMac iPhone Apple news Microsoft begins to phase out ‘classic’ Teams Microsoft is encouraging Teams customers to move to the new, faster version of the collaboration app; the older version will be switched off next year. By Matthew Finnegan May 03, 2024 3 mins Microsoft Teams Collaboration Software Productivity Software news analysis Apple confirms it will open up the iPad in Europe this fall The latest efforts to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act mean developers can offer to side load apps to both iPhones and iPads in the EU. Apple has also taken steps to improve what it offers to smaller and non-commercial developers in the By Jonny Evans May 02, 2024 6 mins iPad Apple Mobile Apps news Udacity offers laid-off US workers free access to its courses for 30 days Sign-ups will be available over the next 30 days By Lucas Mearian May 02, 2024 4 mins Technology Industry IT Jobs IT Skills Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe