Microsoft announced the availability of Microsoft Whiteboard, an app for freeform drawing on Windows 10 devices.

Microsoft Whiteboard Preview lets you create in whatever way feels most natural to you. The pen-first, touch-first technology lets you make fluid gestures with your fingers or draw out finer details with your pen. Using your pen, you can jot down notes, draw precise illustrations, or search for images on the web. Using your fingers, you can swipe to different sections of your board, turn the virtual ruler to the angle you want, and drag and drop images to create a photo stack. Whether you use pen or touch, Microsoft Whiteboard Preview recognizes your intent and delivers your desired outcomes in an instant.

Microsoft Whiteboard is available in Preview.

Multi-party collaboration is on offer within the app, but one of the participants requires some type of Office 365 account (personal, work, or school). I presume this is so the drawing file can be stored in OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint, thus making it available for multi-person access, authoring, and editing.

Whiteboard will be rolled out almost immediately to the subset of Windows 10 devices running an English version of Windows, with support for other languages to follow later.

It will also replace – at some undefined point – the current whiteboard app on a Surface Hub. This means we might have an answer to my question on the Surface Studio, and its use as a remote participant device with collaborative capabilities for use during meetings. And for people with a Surface Pro or Surface Book, Whiteboard should allow better integration with meetings run via a Surface Hub.

There is no word of support for non-Windows devices, which is not Microsoft’s usual practice anymore.