[Offtopic] Interactive Whiteboard software lock-in

[victor rajewski]

It has only just occurred to me (a little late) that just about every
type of interactive whiteboard has its own software system. And
subsequently different file formats. (My main experience is limited to
one vendor, so please correct me if there are vendors where this is
not the case). The vendor our school uses (promethean) encourage
sharing of resources through their website, and I assume others would
as well, as the more resources are shared, the more the boards will
get used, and the more demand there will be for them. But if someone
using a smartboard has made a great resource and shared it, I can't
use it on my activboard due to the proprietary file format - at least
the promethean activstudio software doesn't let you run it on
non-promethean boards. This makes for a great business strategy, but
ends up disadvantaging the teachers who want to share more widely, and
so is bad for the students.

So, my questions are:
1) Are there any IWB vendors that do _not_ lock you into their
software/file format - i.e. the file format is open, and/or the
software is compatible with any IWB?
2) Is there any open-source IWB software, and if not, what are the key
features that would be useful in such? Are there any similar programs
that could be appropriated/modified for the task?

vik