Look mom, we found a growth company in a depressed economy.
The video-conferencing industry long has boasted favorable cost comparisons to that of a business-class air ticket and four-star hotel. But it also was plagued by grainy reception, voice lags and other glitches.
However, the industry has taken off over the last couple of years as travel costs soared and emerging technology developed high-definition resolution and integrated software that permits lawyers, architects or accountants at multiple locations to work on contracts, documents or drawings at the same time.
"We've got three setups in Minneapolis, we're installing a fourth, at a cost of about $25,000 each, and we've got two new ones in Milwaukee and we've got requests from other offices," said Nancy Schmidt, director of information and technology at HGA, the Minneapolis-based architectural firm. HGA works with fast-growing Video Guidance of Eden Prairie. "It's used so much that it's hard to book the conference rooms," she said.
Schmidt said the firm has cut a substantial amount of travel -- thousands of dollars annually.
"We share our staff much more efficiently because we don't ship our people around as much. We connect computers into the video equipment so we can share ideas, pictures and drawings," she said. "We get a lot more done and we can bring in four or five offices for one meeting."
Jon Clark, telecommunications manager at Opus Corp, the nationwide design-and-build contractor, said the company already has recouped its 2007-08 investment of about $400,000 in a sophisticated system made by Tanberg of Norway.
"We have two systems in Minneapolis and one each in 13 cities around the country," Clark said. "Tanberg has emerging, high-definitiion equipment that looks almost as if you're sitting across the table. Our architects and engineers use it internally to collaborate around the country and sometimes we'll do a third-party build for other architects and we'll use the computer or document camera to display plans on the other side."
