The most extensive area of applications in secure webconferencing is in corporate communications. All business entities, large and small have the need to participate in meetings. These meetings represent groups needing to talk with one another. Examples are a marketing group needing to talk with a production group, or a management planning group wishing to talk with the advertising and public relations group.
Meetings take place every day. Meetings not only happen during the business day, but also can take place around the clock. This isn't anything new. I recall in my engineering days working on a pioneering atomic power plant project in an out of the way suburb of Pittsburgh. The project was an offshoot of the Navy Nautillus submarine development. The project was headed by an admiral in the Navy who liked to hold round the clock meetings just to see if the staff was on their toes .. and not asleep on their backs.
Corporations large and small are doing an increasingly larger amount of business through the use of contractors and subcontractors. There is a growing need for corporations to communicate on a regular basis with these "other" corporations that are a newly acquired part of the home corporation. The end result is that meetings of all sorts happen all over the place, and the need for corporate communications increases many-fold.
Meetings increase even more frequently when the number of corporate functions increases as well. Proposal development requires many individuals to meet almost on a daily basis. Training is another function that happens all throughout the corporation. Again, the need to meet increases. Just think of the costs involved in bringing individuals to a corporate center every week to fulfill the missions of corporate communications !!!
A secure webconferencing system is the ultimate answer to corporate communications requirements whose costs are creating a serious detriment to profitability. Ever since the energy crisis has raised the price of fuel, transportation costs have gone through the ceiling. The costs of maintaining security in airports and rail terminals have also risen beyond belief. Driving to meetings is not any better, with rising gasoline prices. All of these costs find their way into employees' expense reporting sheets. Many cost wise companies have found that secure webconferencing systems are a viable alternative to run a business without supporting the airlines and the hotel companies.
Secure webconferencing is indeed the way of the future. Its ultimate success will lie in how much corporate executives can implement cost cutting measures, and how rapidly the joys of flying and staying in posh hotels can be de-glamorized. Only time and unfolding current events will tell the tale.
