Multimedia conferencing: Alternative to business travel

Elizabeth Herrell

As more businesses reduce travel, many companies are considering audio and

data conferencing as a viable alternative to face-to-face meetings. Audio

conferencing commands more than 70 per cent of the $3 billion conferencing

market, but data conferencing is expected to rapidly grow over the next five

years, outpacing audio conferencing growth, as demand for multimedia

conferencing increases. Real-time data collaboration allows conference attendees

to share presentations, collaborate over whiteboards and even hold submeetings

while the main meeting is in progress. Improvements in technology,

reservationless systems and easy-to-use interfaces result in more business users

replacing travel with multimedia conferences. However, vendor products are not

equal, and there is a wide disparity among available vendor solutions.

Companies need to carefully evaluate products, including their capability to

deliver fully integrated voice and data conferences, provide multiple security

levels and offer intuitive user interfaces and attractive pricing, before

signing up for services.

Two main obstacles to conferencing, high price for data collaboration and

security issues, have held back many companies from adding data collaboration to

their conferences. Security may be as basic as password protection, but for

many, this is inadequate for their needs. Web collaboration for secure topics

should have Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption that provides a high level of

data security. For higher levels of security, the Web server needs to remain

behind the company’s firewall, and this needs to be arranged with service

providers or managed through an in-house conferencing system. The other

hindrance to data collaboration has typically been an expensive component of

conference services. Recent announcements by Genesys

Conferencing have dramatically lowered the cost of fully integrated

multimedia collaboration platforms to less than $40 per month for concurrent

users, up to 15 users (compared to $200 per port, per user), when packaged with

audio conferencing.

Companies should anticipate improvements in their conference vendor offerings

and regularly review their current usage to determine how they can most

effectively take advantage of vendor products and services. Video, streaming and

data collaboration create virtual conferencing rooms and serve as reasonable

alternatives to travel. Savings in reduced travel, increased productivity and

faster decisions more than offset fees for these services. Although in some

areas of the world cultural issues traditionally demand face-to-face meetings,

these requirements are being challenged as business looks for new ways to bring

global customers and employees together, safely and inexpensively.