Seeing is Believing

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Can Technology replace the face-to-face meeting in your organisation? Dave Howell assesses the latest advances in virtual meeting and telepresence systems

Efficient communications within your company and with strategic partners is an essential component of your enterprise. As technology has evolved so have the methods of communications that businesses large and small have adopted. Today, with high transport costs, virtual meetings and telepresence technology have rapidly developed to offer a real and practical alternative to the face-to-face meeting. (...)

PROTECTION
Security is of paramount importance when using any kind of conferencing system that uses the internet to route video and audio data. For every business protecting intellectual property as it is discussed using these virtual meetings is a must, so technologies must offer high levels of protection. Says Bert van der Zwan: “Confidentiality of data is of paramount importance when using collaborative services. Companies need to be assured that all information transmitted during a meeting, whether within a shared document, written or discussed, remains secure. Before purchasing any collaborative application, companies should ensure they have thoroughly checked their provider’s security credentials.”
Andrew Pearce, managing director of Powwownow, a telephone conference call company, says: “On a fundamental level whoever is chairing the conference should be clear who is involved in the discussion. It sounds like an obvious point, but one that should be considered when discussing sensitive information. Also, we have very strict rules on security, with each customer getting a unique PIN number to access our web conferencing service, ShowTime.” (...)