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TeamViewer headquarters in Göppingen: "Focus on accessibility"
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / dpa
The German software provider TeamViewer will in future offer a system for online teaching. The MDax company announced this on Tuesday in Göppingen. "TeamViewer Classroom" is the first completely data protection compliant solution from a large software provider that does not use third-party providers. "This means that all data protection requirements of the education ministries in Germany, as well as the European partner countries, can be met," said a company spokesman.
In the corona crisis, many schools in Germany had their online lessons with solutions from US providers such as Microsoft, Zoom or Google, although several state data protection officers had massive concerns. "With the new school year we will investigate all complaints - and we have a lot of complaints from parents and students about the use of certain products," said Baden-Württemberg's data protection officer Stefan Brink in an interview with the "Schwäbisches Tagblatt" before the summer holidays. "If we discover illegal use of tools, we prohibit it."
TeamViewer wants to set itself apart from the US providers with several measures. The classroom solution was developed in Europe by TeamViewer itself and is operated on its own servers in German data centers. "It complies with all the regulations of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and places a special focus on accessibility." The web-based solution only requires a common browser on a PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone and thus also works on older devices and regardless of operating systems.
The foray into the education market is an attempt by TeamViewer to expand the product portfolio.
So far, the MDax company has focused on remote maintenance software and video conferencing solutions.
At the beginning of the corona crisis, TeamViewer benefited from a strong special demand for home office solutions during the corona crisis.
Since then, TeamViewer has invested a lot of money in growth, which has recently been reflected in higher costs for sales, marketing and development, among other things.
"TeamViewer Classroom" will go beyond pure online meetings.
In this way, documents could be processed jointly in the network.
It also offers digital boards, separate rooms for group work and the option of real-time surveys within the learning groups.
The connection of open learning platforms such as Moodle is possible.
pbe / dpa