Business Online Collaboration Dichotomy

The goal of creating a collaborative enterprise might seem like an essential requirement that all forward-looking business leaders would actively support. However, fear of the unknown sometimes makes intelligent people react in ways that, in hindsight, appear totally illogical.

A case in point, Cisco announced results of a global study that found that while 77 percent of IT decision makers surveyed plan to increase spending on internal collaboration tools, company employees believe that their ability to collaborate is constrained by their own employer policies.

That said, more than a quarter of those who work at organizations that prohibit the use of social media applications admitted to changing the settings on their corporate devices to gain online access -- claiming they "need the tools to get the job done."

This new insight was attained by investigating practices at medium to large enterprises -- those with more than 250 employees. The study, conducted by InsightExpress, surveyed 2,023 corporate end-users and 1,011 Information Technology Decision Makers (ITDMs) from 10 countries.

Progressive Use of Online Collaboration Tools
The research found that ITDMs around the world recognize the importance of collaboration tools to the future success of their business, with India and China being the most progressive in adopting the technology.

Consequently, many ITDM respondents said that they are planning to increase their spending on collaboration technologies over the next year, identifying video conferencing, Web conferencing and IP telephony as primary areas of investment.

• Globally, 96 percent ITDMs and end users recognize that collaboration tools have a role to play in the future success of their business.
• Of those surveyed, 77 percent of ITDMs expect investment in collaboration tools to increase between now and October, and 56 percent expect their spending on collaboration tools to increase by 10 percent or more.
• Productivity and efficiency were identified by both end users and ITDMs as the primary benefits of increased collaboration -- with 69 percent of end users regularly using advanced collaboration tools, such as video and Web conferencing, to help them complete tasks at work more efficiently.
  

Why Employees Defy the Policy Restrictions
Employees identified a variety of frustrations with devices and applications at work. These include restrictions set by IT managers on the types of collaboration technologies that can be used at the workplace, a lack of integration among the applications, non-compatible formats (video, data, voice), and the limited number of collaboration tools at their disposal.

• Slightly more than half (52 percent) of organizations prohibit the use of social media applications or similar collaboration tools at work.
• Half (50 percent) of the end users admit to ignoring company policy prohibiting use of social media tools at least once a week, and 27 percent admit to changing the settings on corporate devices to get access to prohibited applications.
  

The study also highlights how end users are clearly motivated by the benefits gained from increased collaboration, but also identifies a need for some enterprises to adapt their corporate processes and organizational culture.

• When asked to identify how collaboration benefits them, 45 percent of the end users pointed to improved productivity and efficiency, 40 percent noted they receive assistance in solving work-related problems, and 31 percent enjoyed accelerated decision making.
• Ease of use (58 percent), the ability to communicate anywhere and at any time (45 percent), and features and functionality (37 percent) are the three most desired attributes of a device or application.
• End users believe that elements of corporate culture can inhibit their ability to collaborate successfully: 46 percent feel that all decisions are made by people at the top of their organization, and 39 percent say colleagues are not willing to share information when it does not benefit their own business unit.
  

The research is the second of a two-part series that Cisco has commissioned to explore the impact of social networking and collaboration in the enterprise. Cisco previously shared findings that explored how organizations use consumer social networking tools to collaborate externally.

Guests Check-in to a TelePresence Suite

The American hospitality industry has suffered from the global economic meltdown. While room rates sank nearly 9 percent for the U.S. hotel industry overall, luxury hotels saw their rates decline more than 16 percent, according to a market study by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Was the "frugal consumer" phenomenon to blame? Actually, they're not the main culprit. Business people that chose to travel to meet their customers and suppliers are still not likely budgeted to stay at the pricier hotel properties.

What's a savvy upscale hotelier to do, given this scenario? Follow a customer demand trend that has gained momentum -- where spending has risen, based on a solid ROI justification.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts unveiled its first in-hotel Cisco TelePresence meeting suites with a virtual, interactive meeting spanning across two continents. The W Chicago City Center and Sheraton on the Park Sydney are the first in Starwood's global portfolio to introduce the new meeting facilities.

Borderless Face-to-Face Collaboration in Action
Guests and corporate clients were brought together in a true-to-life meeting setting, despite more than 9,000 miles apart and the 17 hour time difference. Participants in both locations had a seat at the table and were able to meet "face-to-face" -- utilizing ultra-high definition video, superior audio and life-size imagery of all participants.

In June of 2009, Starwood announced a partnership with Tata Communications and plans to build Cisco TelePresence rooms in 10 properties worldwide. In addition to the Chicago and Sydney hotels, two more TelePresence meeting suites will open in the first half of this year -- including the Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers and Sheraton Centre Toronto.

Other planned locations include The Westin Los Angeles Airport, with the anticipation to expand the offering to key domestic and international business markets such as Dallas, San Francisco, Brussels, Paris, Hong Kong and Frankfurt. As an industry first, reservations for these TelePresence rooms can be made instantly using the Tata Communications online portal.

"The launch of the new Cisco TelePresence meeting suites at the W Chicago and Sheraton on the Park Sydney is another example of Starwood's commitment to innovation by offering our clients an exciting, new meetings solution that facilitates a 'face-to-face' meeting in the same room regardless of global location," said Christie Hicks, Senior Vice President of Global Sales for Starwood. "We have a great partner in Tata Communications and look forward to continuing opening new meeting facilities throughout our portfolio of hotels around the world."

Latest Video Meeting Technology, On-Demand
Cisco TelePresence provides life-like, high definition, conferencing facilities with superior audio, video and environmental qualities allowing participants to meet their colleagues, customers and business partners across a virtual table. The public facility enables those who don't have a corporate TelePresence room to utilize this new benefit at an affordable per-hour rental rate.

Tata Communications has several operational public rooms in India (Mumbai, Bangalore (x2), Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi and Gurgaon), UK (London) and USA (Boston), Manila with PLDT in the Philippines and Johannesburg with Neotel in South Africa.

Culture is Key to Advanced Collaboration

Organizations that deploy the most advanced Internet protocol-based collaboration technologies achieve more than twice the return on their collaboration investment and perform better than their less collaborative peers, according to a thought-provoking Frost & Sullivan market study.

"Meetings Around the World II: Charting the Course of Advanced Collaboration," sponsored by Verizon and Cisco, examines how busy professionals in businesses and government agencies use advanced collaboration tools such as voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), instant messaging or meeting via high definition video or Cisco TelePresence to get their work done.

The study is the first to develop a model for measuring a return on collaboration investment, the Return on Collaboration (ROC) Index. It establishes a progressive impact of deploying advanced Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) technologies on business performance and measures improvements in areas such as research and development, human resources, sales, marketing, investor relations and public relations.

Advanced Collaborators Harness Competitive Advantage
The study also identified emerging business technology adoption trends and attitudes across the globe. Key findings from the study include:

• Businesses and government agencies deploying increasingly more sophisticated collaboration tools -- such as VoIP soft phones, immersive video and fixed mobile convergence -- saw a corresponding improvement in business results relative to the amount invested.
• The overall average ROC score was 4.2 -- meaning organizations received an average return of four times their investment in deploying collaboration technologies.
• The majority of organizations deploying UC&C report they are more successful than their peers compared to those not deploying UC&C (70 percent versus 47 percent).
• Of organizations deploying UC&C, 40 percent plan to increase spending.
• VoIP is leading the way for delivery of advanced communications and collaboration applications.
  

Why Corporate Culture is a Defining Factor
If you're thinking that simply deploying online collaboration tools will deliver results similar to the leaders -- then think again. Your work environment is truly instrumental to success.

How do the Advanced Collaborators attain an ROC score of 6.1? These organizations tend to have "open" entrepreneurial corporate cultures where individuals are accessible, and there's regular cooperation between business units.

"Meetings Around the World II confirms and extends the key findings of the original study and builds on those conclusions. This latest research shows adopting progressively more advanced unified communications and collaboration tools can help organizations achieve a corresponding return on collaboration and improvement across all business functions. This return was most dramatic in the areas of sales, marketing and research and development" says Brian Cotton, vice president for Information and Communications Technologies for Frost & Sullivan.

Video Communication Applications in Healthcare

Just as architecture has the power to transform a skyline, create new vistas and reshape the horizon -- so technology has the power to redefine healthcare, that's the theme of this year's HIMSS09 conference and exhibition in Chicago, Illinois this week.

Cisco video technology was featured in the AT&T Telepresence Solution booth on the exhibition floor. Visitors to the live video demo described their perspective on potential new applications, and Wendy Bohling, Senior VP at Magpie Healthcare had a more profound point of view. She said, regarding the business impact, "Telepresence changes and differentiates a hospital."

Quest to Improve the Patient Experience
Enhancing communication capabilities in healthcare can be equated to the potential for productivity and cost-reduction benefits, which are clearly valued. However, perhaps the emerging opportunities will now also focus on patient safety and the overall patient experience.

A recent study, conducted by Zogby International, sheds new light on the heavy toll that communication lapses take on patient care, clinical efficiency and the overall ability of nurses to do their job. More than 250 practicing nurses were surveyed. They included those in medical-surgical, emergency room, operating room, and critical care or intensive care unit service.

The Key Survey Findings Include:

Improving "people-to-people connections" offers the greatest potential for progress. The primary issue centered on the opportunity to improve communications among care team members. The time that nurses spend chasing other people to get answers was twice as great as the time they spend locating other resources.

• When asked how many minutes per shift are typically spent "chasing other people to get answers," up to 86 percent of respondents estimated wasting as much as two hours per shift.
• When asked about information needed to improve communication, 48 percent of nurses surveyed said, "care team availability and location" is most needed from a communications device at the point of care.
• In an open-ended question about the most significant challenge that a nurse's communications device could address, 56 percent of nurses said, "better communication between staff."
• About 60 percent of nurses in the study estimate they work up to 10 hours of overtime each week due to time wasted or lost trying to communicate with other staff.
  

If the visitor comments at the AT&T Telepresence demonstrations are an indication of an emerging trend, then the opportunities for hospital administrators, and other healthcare industry leaders, to apply the latest managed or hosted service offerings certainly looks very promising. Clearly, IT transformation is a rising priority.

Updates:
View the Day Two video of additional demo visitor commentary.
More demo visitor perspectives on the Day Three video coverage.

Business Video Impact is Far Reaching

Many of the visitors to the AT&T booth at the VoiceCon 2009 are having their first experience of a TelePresence solution in action. Tina Vestal, customer care center manager at CHEP, perhaps sums it up best with her assessment -- "it's amazing!"

Earlier this week, BAE Systems Land and Armaments, part of the third largest defense company in the world, agreed to enhance their global employee collaboration and productivity with the AT&T Telepresence Solution.

BAE Systems will use Telepresence to provide an in-person meeting experience with executive leadership and engineering teams across the U.S., and the United Kingdom. This capability will also be expanded to Sweden, South Africa and other regions in the future.

Their TelePresence applications are intended to be far reaching, across numerous parts of their organization. Live video-based meetings will help them accelerate decision-making processes and problem-solving for high-priority projects.

More Productive Meetings, Less Unproductive Travel
With the anticipated increase in productivity through engineering team collaboration, and frequent management team interactions, the BAE Systems participants will also realize direct operational cost reduction.

AT&T's fully managed service includes in-room equipment, installation, full monitoring and management of the application, network provisioning, remote help desk service and on-site equipment maintenance and repair.

"We anticipate a reduction in travel time, costs, and realize other benefits -- including improved employee safety and quality of life through this environmentally-friendly tool," said Bharat Amin, VP & CIO at BAE Systems Land & Armaments.

BAE Systems is a global company engaged in the development, delivery and support of advanced defense, security and aerospace systems in the air, on land and at sea. They employ 105,000 people, and have customers in over 100 countries worldwide.

Updates:
Also view the Day Two video commentary from demo visitors.

Transforming Government Through Next Generation Technology

Governments everywhere are struggling with unprecedented challenges. They're expected to reignite a global economy in free-fall, while grappling with crumbling infrastructure, aging populations, declining quality in education and healthcare -- plus a heightened social concern about preserving the environment.

All in a budgetary environment of declining tax revenues.

Like the private sector, governments are now turning to technology to help them to improve both the delivery of government services and to promote overall economic growth.

Building 21st Century Economies
Like the waterways and highways of previous centuries, government leaders recognize they must create essential tech infrastructure to fuel innovation-led growth and prosperity. High-speed broadband is seen as a catalyst for encouraging economic development. However, meaningful services are required to stimulate demand.

For example, Germany has committed €4.6 Billion to install Telepresence capabilities throughout its schools -- to improve the quality of its education system, while reducing costs.

Similar to the access of electricity and the telephone, governments recognize the social equity of providing broadband access to everyone. Thereby using technology to improve the quality of inner-city schools, encourage more telecommuting and increase the productivity of rural economies.

Delivering 21st Century Public Services
There are significant opportunities for progressive governments to:

• Reduce Costs of Delivery – delivering online services, collaboration tools, and video, not only lowers costs to serve but enhances the overall customer experience.
• Empower Citizens – employing Web 2.0 capabilities, such as collaboration and social networking, allows citizens to more easily interact with their government.
• Improve Levels of Service – Kiosks, Telepresence units, or VoIP enabled call centers for 311 calls, raises service levels and the overall experience.
  

Creating 21st Century Governments
Both taxpayers and public servants now recognize that the business of government must evolve, and that technology plays a critical role in this transformation. Likewise, technology providers can choose to partner with governments on this journey.

Research by Cisco IBSG (the company's strategic consulting arm) reveals that the public sector has a number of unique requirements:

• Funding Models – providers must find creative new ways to pay for the new technologies, such as managed services and public-private partnerships.
• Skill Shortages – hiring freezes and lack of skills, means that governments require significant help in design, implementation and management of technology.
• Integrated Solutions – across multiple departments and levels of government, but also with not-for-profits, agencies, multiple partners and other parties.
• Innovation – the private sector can proactively bring new and innovative solutions to legacy problems -- seeding the transformation.
  

Managed Services offers a proven way to help transform government for the 21st Century. However, service providers will need to recognize the unique needs of the public sector and to partner with the champions of progress, to address their most pressing challenges.

About the author: Stuart Taylor is a Director in Cisco IBSG. Stuart leads thought leadership and engagements with key Service Providers in managed services. He has over 15 years of experience focused on strategy, corporate development, business unit strategy, M&A and operational improvement with large mobile and wireline operators and high technology clients.

IT Survival in the Hunt, Kill, Eat Economy

Business Technology related market research used to be targeted primarily at the CIO or IT manager roles within an organization. How times have changed. Research and Markets has added the "Business Technology Trends & Impacts Advisory Service" subscription to their market study offerings.

The service is designed to help all savvy business decision makers develop and implement an effective IT strategy, plus take advantage of the opportunities -- and face the many challenges -- today's rapidly evolving business technology changes will bring.

Developing a Plan of Attack
Clients will receive the usual forecasts and predictions, as well as the strategic implications of those predictions. Subscribers receive advice on practices they can employ now to help organizations succeed within the turbulent economic environment.

The Cutter Business Technology Council is the source of this insight, which includes a team of IT authorities who use a collaborative forecasting approach to provide clients with monthly Council Opinions and present future scenarios for business technology and its many applications.

Monthly council opinions provide a steady flow of predictions, including commentary from each Council Fellow and the logic behind their concurring or dissenting opinion, as well as the strategic implications of the apparent trend.

TelePresence and Other Innovations
Recent opinions have focused on software delivery versus compliance; removing barriers to collaboration through TelePresence; the new IT governance model; IT in the "hunt, kill, eat" economy; systems acquisition and management; timing IT investments, vernacular computing, and more.

Twice-monthly Executive Updates include statistical results of related market research. Cutter's market research focuses on topics such as IT funding, organizational agility, information security, instant messaging, IT litigation, and more.

Weekly Trends E-Mail Advisor alerts subscribers to new technologies, the latest advancements in technology implementation, and new thinking on technology management -- such as managed and hosted services.

The Data Center Metamorphosis
Significant transformations within the realm of the evolving data center, such as the emergence of Unified Computing models, will be an incremental topic included in our ongoing commentary -- right here on the Business Technology Roundtable.

Many forward-looking organizations are eager to develop next-generation data centers that unleash the full power of virtualization. Unified Computing is an architecture that bridges the silos in the data center into a single unified architecture -- using industry standard technologies.

Retailers Upbeat About TelePresence Applications

Companies with extended supply chains frequently need to collaborate with multiple partners -- simultaneously and visually. Yesterday at the National Retail Federation Conference in New York, AT&T and Cisco reminded attendees that they have added multipoint capabilities to their telepresence offering, which AT&T delivers as a managed service.

Attendees visiting AT&T's booth participated in videoconferencing discussions with Cisco employees in San Jose, and expressed confidence that they could apply the teleconferencing capabilities in their business immediately. Collin Cupid of high-end handbags and accessories manufacturer Coach said, "It made you feel like everybody's in the same room."

Sally Curtis of Planet Retail, a market research firm, said, "We can use this in our own context for communicating with customers. It's absolutely real." A couple of executives from United Rentals wanted an installation "yesterday," but were willing to settle for getting the equipment from the show floor. "Can we take that one right now?" asked Michael Ellis.

According to the companies, the AT&T Telepresence Solution works over the AT&T Virtual Private Network transport and provides:

• AT&T-owned Cisco TelePresence equipment
• Visual experience with the simplicity of a phone call
• Installation, monitoring and management of the application
• On-site equipment maintenance and repair, plus remote support
  
• Ability to handle complex, multinational, inter-company communications
• Security and reliability, as well as reduced IT staff requirements and limited impact on existing network applications
• Reduced exposure to technological obsolescence, reduced upfront capital expenditure
  

Global companies with extended supply chains can use telepresence to improve communications and accelerate time-to-market. They can also apply the visual medium to transcend cross-cultural communication hurdles, and thereby improve the speed of decision-making and overall operational efficiency.

Managed Services: Branching Out to Branch Offices

Companies with branch offices are facing a technology paradox: On the one hand, businesses are expanding their branch office locations by 6.8 percent annually. On the other hand, only 15 percent of those remote locations have on-site technology staff members, according to Nemertes Research.

Those stats beg the following question: How do you empower branch office employees with the proper technology when you can't afford to staff those remote offices with more IT staff?

The answer (as our regular readers already know) is managed services. Increasingly, companies are moving their IT assets out of remote offices and into either (A) a centralized data center or (B) an Internet cloud.

The march toward centralizing and virtualizing IT has some benefits and some challenges.

Next Generation Empowered Branch
The good news: Centralizing applications and IT infrastructure can make networks easier (and less costly) to maintain. The bad news: Accessing centralized applications from remote offices can be a painful, time consuming process. And application performance over a Wide Area Network (WAN) connection can be horrendous.

A range of managed services, however, can potentially eliminate those challenges. Application acceleration services, hosted VoIP, hosted unified communications and managed 3G services are now all mainstream solutions for branch offices.

And the trend toward managed branch office services will surely accelerate -- especially as companies explore next-generation technologies such as TelePresence.

The lesson for readers: Keep expanding those branch offices.

But, check in with managed service providers (from big companies like Verizon Business down to small companies like your local VAR or integrator) to see what type of managed branch office services they offer.

Four High-Tech Steps SMBs Should Consider Now

The fiscal fourth quarter has just started. But now is the time for small businesses owners and mid-size business managers to start looking ahead to 2009.

"Cost cutting" is a popular topic during today's uncertain economic times. You can hide in fear and close your wallet. Or you can take these four steps to gain more predictable operating costs -- while driving your business forward.

1. Move to a managed services contract: If you're using an IT consulting firm or solutions provider to maintain your network and PC infrastructure, ask them about so-called "managed services." Many consulting firms now offer flat monthly fees to maintain, protect and optimize business desktops, servers, network infrastructure and applications.

This flat-rate approach will eliminate those "surprise" emergency IT repairs that can throw off your company's monthly budget or hinder cash flow.

If you're not familiar with the managed services, here are some key questions you should ask as you seek information about the industry.

2. Rethink business travel: Notice I'm not suggesting that you eliminate business travel. Face-to-face engagements are still important when meeting new clientele or pitching new business.

But for established business relationships, consider transitioning your face-to-face meetings to the virtual world -- especially if you need to communicate on a global scale. Convene online meetings using WebEx, unified communications and other tools that drive rich discussions. Make sure your business's web site includes a simple instruction page to help all of your employees -- and your customers -- get started with these collaboration tools.

And lead by example: Your top executives should be hosting the collaborative gatherings from time to time.

3. Find Your TelePresence: Conventional wisdom says TelePresence -- a rich, comprehensive video conferencing technology -- is too expensive for small businesses. But that's a misnomer.

For about the price of a one-week business trip, it's now possible to deploy a personal TelePresence system in a central office or a branch office. (In fact, the concept of Personal TelePresence dates back to at least 1994.) Each time a TelePresence system eliminates a business trip, you're essentially pay your company a dividend or freeing up cash for marketing, sales, research and development -- or other revenue-lifting activities.

4. Head for Home: If you still offer company cars to some employees, it might be wiser to invest those corporate dollars in your employees' home offices. Your company will spend less dollars on rising energy costs; employees will eliminate commute times and related expenses; and at home TelePresence and collaboration tools will make staff members far more productive.

I'm not suggesting that you eliminate company cars for your road warriors, top revenue producers and field service experts. But take a look at the numbers -- and ask your employees -- to see if they'd prefer to reduce their travel expenses in return for at-home TelePresence.

Some pundits think that at-home TelePresence won't gain momentum until 2010 or so. I disagree. I think leading-edge users are already making the move. I'll be looking for an in-home TelePresence system myself in the first half of 2009.

You have nearly 10 months of operating expenses to review from 2008. Take a close look to determine how your company is spending its travel dollars. Then, shift a portion of those dollars to collaborative tools.

Your company will gain improved productivity -- while earning a financial dividend -- every month in 2009.

Small Community Banks, Big Managed Service Benefits

Community banks have attracted new customers by offering a truly personal banking experience that their larger rivals can't match, and by maintaining close ties to local communities.

However, all bank customers are demanding Business Technology driven services that many community banks simply can't provide with their current infrastructures. The lack of the latest technology can make migrating to new services prohibitively complex and expensive.

Community banks have depended on multiple providers for their voice and data networks. These banks found that they were paying substantially more for their network connections than larger institutions.

Moreover, having to deal with multiple providers can strain the smaller bank's modest IT staff. Implementing and operating a new converged voice/data/video IP network would overwhelm an IT team that usually handles simple tasks.

In addition, deploying a new IP network could negatively impact the community bank's operating budget. In fact, the total cost of ownership (TCO) for a typical bank's voice and data networks is second only to employee salaries and benefits.

Truly Demanding Operating Environment
Adding to these business challenges is the banking industry's strong emphasis on security and business continuity. Banks must be certain that their networks can pass their banking regulator's annual IT audit -- and deliver 24/7 services to customers in the event of a major disaster.

A strict regulatory environment and tight budgets make community bankers conservative when it comes to implementing technologies they consider unfamiliar. One solution that's proven, and likely to deliver lower operating costs, is the out-tasking of IT and communication network needs to a managed service provider.

A managed service solution can reduce a community bank's recurring voice and data expenses by 10 to 25 percent, with even greater reductions possible for larger banks.

Less Restrictions, More Freedom to Innovate
That said, an out-tasked IT and network infrastructure scenario isn’t purely about cost-reduction, it's also an enabler of customer service innovation. As an example, community banks are now deploying TelePresence applications that simplify the challenge of delivering full-service offerings at their distant branch locations.

A customer at an outlying branch can contact a bank officer at another branch and talk face to face without having to travel a great distance for the meeting. Plus, all required transactions can be completed locally.

Small community banks can now gain big Business Technology benefits, thanks to the creative use of managed services.

Small Businesses: Your TelePresence Room Is Ready

Conventional wisdom says TelePresence -- the next-generation video conferencing technology -- is best positioned for enterprise customers with big IT budgets. But through affordable managed services, small businesses are poised to join the TelePresence party.

Fact is, TelePresence can benefit small businesses in many ways. It can allow entrepreneurs to meet virtually with business partners, customers, investors and even job candidates scattered across the globe -- without booking expensive business trips or depending on impersonal conference calls.

TelePresence creates a virtual environment where all participants feel as if they're seated in a single executive conference room. You can read each person's body language. You can maintain eye contact. And you can focus on deep discussions.


Only for Big Enterprises?
Now, for the challenge: The TelePresence industry is gaining momentum within large enterprises that want to improve virtual communications with customers, board members and other key influencers.

However, small business owners are not very familiar with TelePresence. And in many cases, small businesses couldn't afford the upscale conference room designs and back-end IT infrastructure that TelePresence requires.

A Better Option
Of course, entry-level TelePresence systems allow small businesses to get started with high-end video conferencing without breaking their budgets.

Still, there is another option that small businesses should consider: Managed TelePresence services, which are popping up in hotels, airport terminals and other places that involve business travel.

In a typical scenario, many upscale hotels will soon offer TelePresence conference rooms that you will be able to reserve for an hourly fee. Assuming the hotel chain has locations throughout the country and across the world, you'll be able to invite customers, partners and remote employees to participate in TelePresence sessions simply by telling them to drive to a local hotel.

The hotel, working in partnership with a service provider or major Telecom partner, will manage the entire TelePresence experience -- shielding the small business owner from any potential IT complexities.