Business Travel Tips

With the several problems business travelers experience these days, Videoconferencing appears to become a viable alternative to traditional business travel. Problems such as crowded planes, delays, security lines and airport hassle, as well as the rising costs of business trips, make alternatives to travel more attractive.
The New York Times explains how, Videoconferencing, thanks to new technology, is now delivering on its promise as an alternative to traditional business travel.

The high-definition TV images are sharp. Broadband fiber-optic cable has replaced tired telephone lines. And the equipment comes complete with studios that look handsome and appropriately corporate.
With the arrival of high-tech equipment, virtual meetings look better and better the worse the airport hassle becomes. […] Equipment suppliers, led by Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Polycom and Tandberg, have created a new word - “telepresence” - to market the technology. Translated, it means “being there.”

- Telepresence is still too expensive

The telepresence technology comes with a large price tag: up to $300,000 to $400,000 a studio. […] The infant telepresence industry may never produce big numbers, in dollars or units shipped, according to Andrew Davis, an analyst at Wainhouse Research, a consultancy in Duxbury, Massachusetts.
“I’d guess it will never be more than 1 percent of total videoconferencing sales,” Davis added. The market is dominated by simpler systems that use far less sophisticated cameras and microphones, often carried over telephone lines.
These cost about $8,000 to $15,000 each, and last year 163,000 of these units were sold, he said. Still, even this market is growing about 20 percent a year, he said.

Claire Schooley, a teleconferencing expert at Forrester Research says “Going the video route may seem expensive, but if you’re talking about high-level executives moving about in a global company - flying first or business class or in a company jet just to see someone in person - travel adds up and the cost of sophisticated video setups can be a wash.“