Virtual meetings

The Economist reports on a Wainhouse survey of remote conferencing.

Nobody was surprised at the growth in audio, video and web-based conferencing after the terrorist attacks of 2001. Such technologies allow “virtual meetings” ranging from a simple three-way conference call to a fancy multimedia presentation beamed to hundreds over the internet. A sluggish economy, last year's SARS scare and lengthy security lines at airports have also fuelled interest. But as the economy rebounds, will enthusiasts of virtual meetings simply go back to real ones?

Apparently not, according to a new survey. Enthusiasm for virtual meetings has continued to grow (see chart). Having been prompted to try virtual meetings, many people seem to like them, says Ira Weinstein of Wainhouse Research, which carried out the survey.

But while virtual meetings are often seen as a cheaper alternative to travel, they are better understood as a middle ground between a phone call and a face-to-face meeting, argues Mr Weinstein. They save money, but they also save time. In a survey of business travellers carried out by MCI, a big American telecoms firm, 69% said they preferred a virtual meeting to travelling because it saved time, while only 37% said they did it to save money. Each has its place, argues Mr Weinstein. “Video conferencing is a perfect second-meeting tool after the first handshake,” he says.

Growing fastest is “web conferencing”, which usually combines a phone-based audio conference with a visual display (such as a slide presentation or software demonstration) delivered via a web browser. It grew by 40% last year, and hybrid web-audio conferences are now starting to displace audio-only conference calls. There is no need for fancy equipment, since most people already have a phone and a PC on their desks.

The boom in web conferencing was happening anyway, says Praful Shah of WebEx, the dominant web-conferencing provider, with 67% of the market. The firm's revenues grew from $2.6m in 1999 to $189m in 2003. “We were already on a fast track,” he says, even before the technology started to get more exposure.