Videoconferencing gains appeal amid travel fear

SAN JOSE, Calif.

Maria Yap won't be flying once a week anymore to meet with software developers in Seattle. Jack Reding, who usually flies 150,000 miles a year, also plans to cut back.

Instead, the formerly frequent fliers will rely more than ever on videoconferencing.

"I'll lose a lot of personal interaction, but now I have to weigh whether it'll be worth the extra hours or getting trapped away from home," said Yap, a product manager for Adobe Systems Inc. in San Jose.

Jittery about travel after last week's terror -- or simply unwilling to undergo the hassle of heightened airport security, many people are turning to a technology that is just now becoming reasonable in quality and price.

The high price tags and jerky pictures of yesteryears are gone, while bandwidth has become more plentiful and reliable. Now, companies turned off by the $30,000 bulky videoconferencing systems of a decade ago can outfit a broadband-connected conference room for $5,000.

"Videoconferencing gets a better chance now than ever before," said Roopam Jain, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan, a San Antonio, Texas-based marketing research and consulting firm.

Less travel interruptions

Companies that provide videoconferencing services saw their business spike after the terror attacks. Setups at hotels were used to contact loved ones or stranded travelers. Companies turned to videoconferencing to conduct meetings when restrictions on air travel disrupted previous plans.

A similar spike occurred after the Gulf War, recalled John Fields, chief operating officer at V-SPAN Inc., a King of Prussia, Pa.-based provider of conferencing services.

This time, with companies like Schlumberger Ltd., Coca-Cola and Home Depot placing restrictions on employee flying out of safety concerns, analysts expect the boost in virtual meetings to last.

Jain projects revenues for the U.S. videoconferencing market will grow from $1.99 billion in 2000 to $7.8 billion in 2006.

Even before the terror attacks, analysts had expected some industry growth. That's because companies were expanding network capabilities just as the economic slowdown prompted a curtailment on business travel.

Security has already helped videoconferencing gain traction: A World Bank meeting in June was simulcast on the Internet so participants could avoid a violent confrontation with protesters in Barcelona, Spain.

One logical implementer is RealNetworks Inc., a Seattle-based Internet media company.

Instead of canceling its annual conference next week, RealNetworks decided to Webcast the event, complete with interactive and videoconferencing sessions.

"Flying just isn't that great an option" anymore, said Reding, litigation chief at the law firm of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in San Francisco. "Videoconferencing is not as smooth as it could be, but it's better than Plan B -- whatever that is."

Lacking face time

The videoconferencing systems at the nine worldwide offices of Paul, Hastings had been in place for more than a year, but Reding said they were underutilized.

Not anymore.

Adobe, a San Jose-based maker of publishing software, not only told its employees that travel won't be a requirement -- it specifically advised them to consider videoconferences and other ways of doing business.

Yap and her colleagues in Seattle have used videoconferencing to discuss software bugs and meet with co-workers in India, Singapore and Australia.

"It's certainly better than e-mail or the phone," Adobe product manager Will Eisley said from Seattle during an interview using the company's videoconferencing system.

Still, the technology can't fully replace human contacts that might include impromptu hallway chats and laughs over lunch. "There won't be the face time, where you can just relax and talk about issues," Yap said. "But we'll have to try to make the most of it now."

Andrew Davis, a managing partner at Wainhouse Research in Boston, sees a potential cultural shift among workers who previously felt they had to meet face-to-face.

"Now they're saying, 'Maybe I don't want to be there, or maybe I do want to be there, but I don't want to spend three hours in line at (Boston's) Logan airport going through security.'"