In the face of rising fuel costs, many companies are turning to online collaboration and video conferencing services to reduce travel costs and at the same time help protect the environment. This current push for video conference services have left many companies scrambling to find the appropriate IT solution for their company, and the Marriott Hotels are looking to provide the solution, or at least be a stop-gap solution for companies that need an immediate solution.

Marriott International Hotels are installing Hewlett Packard’s Halo telepresence centers in key hotels around the world. The Halo telepresence system is a complete video conference solution that has a physical semi-circle conference table, with large LCD television screens that make up the other half of the table. The result is what appears to be a round conference table, half with people physically present, and the other half at any other location that has a similar Halo setup. The technology allows very realistic conferencing, without the hassle and costs of conventional travel.

Marriott Spokesman, John Wolfe:

It’s an opportunity to open up a new line of business that we currently don’t have.

A study conducted by Orbitz Business and Business Traveller magazine found that 79% of corporate travel managers are feeling some pressure to cut travel expenditures and 42% are exploring alternatives to business travel, including web conferencing and video conferencing services.

Teleprescense systems like Hewlett Packard’s Halo can cost tens of thousands of dollars. The availability of these systems at key Marriott hotels will provide easy access to companies that only need to occassionaly use the technology, and for companies that plan to purchase the technology but would like to use it first. No date has been set on when Marriott and HP plan on rolling out the service.

Large companies are taking note of successful alternative work styles and the shifting desire of many employees to work from home or at satellite offices closer to home. Many of these companies are attempting to tackle the problem with large-scale, expensive telepresence and video conferencing services that cost as much money as they save. Here are 7 keys to keep a remote workforce program successful:

1. You can keep a strong client / vendor relationship without ever meeting face-to-face. The concept of representatives flying around the world to meet clients is a thing of the past. While face-to-face still has its place and value, interacting by video conferencing, phone and email is no longer “impersonal” and can be quite intimate and engaging. Many workers these days are just as comfortable with colleagues they’ve never met as they are with their in-office counterparts.

2. Physical presence doesn’t necessarily mean quality presence. Old and large corporations live by the notion that if you aren’t sitting at your desk, you aren’t working. But being in the office does not guarantee that you are truly engaged in your work and by the same token, being away from the office doesn’t mean you’re not working. There are dozens of online project management tools - often including time tracking - that can help managers keep a handle on their remote workers.

3. Large telepresence systems may be overkill for smaller companies. Telepresence systems may be an ideal solution for large companies that have multiple satellite offices that have frequent online meetings, but there are many inexpensive, even free, teleconferencing and videoconferencing services like instantpresenter.com that can still make distributed teams incredibly productive for a fraction of the price.

4. Electronic “paper” trails increase accountability. Unlike face-to-face meetings or phone calls that are not taped, many remote online meeting tools have built-in recording features that can be archived and reviewed. Using project management tools in the work process can also track and archive all of your correspondence. Switching from standard meetings to online discussion boards helps make your “institutional memory” more readily available to all workers in the company, creating a knowledge management database and cutting down on needless searches for information.

5. Archived training videos and demos, along with archived webinars and webcasts are all right at your fingertips. They are also at your client’s or potential client’s fingertips any time of the day or night or in any time zone. Your sales tools are always at the ready.

6. Online web-work can help save the planet. All corporations are feeling the pressure to go green, and having employees work from home and not drive, and having clients meet via video conferencing and not fly are easy success stories that you can use to impress stakeholders. Save fossil fuels by implementing telecommuting and remote work processes. Corporate workers care about saving the planet, too.

7. Take advantage of web conferencing, audio conferencing and video conferencing services. Just because workers are out of the office (whether traveling, working in remote offices, or working from home) doesn’t mean that you have to be out of touch. There are many quality video conferencing and webcasting services available at very low costs such as InstantPresenter and WebEx.

Polycom, a web conferencing and video conferencing service provider, this week reported its second quarter results, which beat revenue estimates but missed earnings estimates by only a single cent. Revenue grew 16% to $271.6 million. Net income grew 77% to $17.8 million. Polycom is just one of many video conferencing service providers to see sales increase as the price of travel makes web conferencing and video conferencing an attractive alternative.

In a recent study, Gartner expects web conferencing and video conferencing solutions to generate $600 million in annual equipment revenue and $1.5 billion in revenue including services by 2010. In addition, in an IT budget priority survey for enterprises, online collaboration moved up two slots to number eight.

Web conference and video conference services are growing rapidly, most notably outside of the United States. North America revenues were up 7% for the year, Europe grew by 36%, Asia by 20%, and Latin America by 36%.

Polycom expects its telepresence and high definition video conference business to continue to benefit from the increasing costs of travel, particularly during this economic slowdown. It is also increasing its marketing and research spending to increase the financial benefits from the trend. For the third quarter, Polycom expects revenue to increase 3%.

InstantConference, the dedicated on-demand reservation-less online conference service, answers the need for company-wide, user-managed online conferencing at an affordable price with the release of a new enterprise service. Featuring low-cost monthly plans starting at $25/month and toll free rates as low as 3.5 cents per minute, this fully-featured online meeting service can be set up and managed in a few minutes with an online administrator account.

InstantConference CEO, Alex Cory:

InstantConference Enterprise was developed with feedback from executives in small businesses and divisions of larger companies who were looking for a simple and centrally managed service at highly competitive prices. We have launched a service that offers a comprehensive suite of user-managed conferencing tools within a company organized platform.

InstantConference Enterprise targets the market for centrally-managed online conferencing services with a high-value mix of free and premium features. Company administrators can easily sign up and manage accounts by division and employee, using centrally-managed online billing and review, plus creation, and deletion of employee accounts. Employees are automatically provided with their own user-managed accounts, which include free online conferencing, free recording and storage, large scale online conferences, free desktop sharing, and very low cost toll free online conferencing. Both InstantConference and InstantConference enterprise services also come with moderator controls, dedicated conferencing numbers, and an easy-to-use online account management system.

InstantConference Enterprise Overview

Monthly Plans:

* $25/month – purchase unlimited Toll Free 800 minutes at 5.5¢/minute
* $50/month- purchase unlimited Toll Free 800 minutes at 4.5¢/minute
* $100/month- purchase unlimited Toll Free 800 minutes at 3.5¢/minute

Enterprise Features include:

* Administrator account management tools for easy sign-up and management of all employees
* Convenient monthly billing plans centralized on one administrator account
* Access to both free(a) and toll free 800 dial-in numbers
* Toll Free rates starting as low as 3.5¢/minute
* Unlimited recording, downloading and 30 days storage
* Online Moderator controls for extra security and control
* Conference activity and transaction summaries
* Up to 250 callers on every online conference
* Unlimited desktop sharing
* Dedicated online conference bridges
* 24 hour reservation-less access

Video conferencing services and web conferencing have become a vital part of many American and international companies. Video conferencing and web conferencing are convenient and lower operational costs.

Because of the millions of dollars that videoconferencing services have saved U.S. firms, the web conferencing and online collaboration industry expanded by about 30 percent in 2007. In 2008, the total income of all audio conferencing, video conferencing and web conferencing technologies is expected to hit $8 billion and is forecast to further increase to $10 billion by 2012.

Although videoconferencing services have been around for several years, during its early years early adopters of the technology claimed that in many cases the video quality was so poor or too choppy, and would often opt to meet important clients in person. New advances in high definition video conferencing services have remedied the issue.

Installing high definition videoconferencing services can be a major investment, with initial expenses for software and hardware averaging $200,000 and maintenance costs of 15 percent a year. However, with the ever-rising costs of fuel, and the related increase in travel, video conferencing technology can quickly pay for itself. Video conferencing also lowers the carbon footprint that companies create while using conventional travel.

With the newest releases of both Citirix GoToMeeting and new GoToWebinar applications, Citrix is throwing in a few free online collaboration tools. Free VoIP and audio conferencing for both Mac and PC are now integrated to deliver a seamless experience with the newest releases the company’s webcasting and webinar applications. One-click online meetings are now possible with this new combination of VoIP, phone and web conferencing for small-group online meetings and large-group webinar events.

Citrix Online (a division of Citrix Inc.) flagship product, GoToMeeting can accommodate up to 25 attendees and it’s newer online application: GoToWebinar can accommodate up to 1,000 attendees simultaneously

Vice President of Citrix Online, Elizabeth Cholawsky:

[With the new releases of GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar], every feature is based on extensive user feedback, from full Macintosh access to this new total audio solution.

Citrix Online sells direct via a sales force and online, but also has a channel program that offers incentives to resellers who recommend Citrix products to clients. Citrix has approximately 7,680 channel and alliance partners in more than 100 countries world-wide.

Dimdim, an open source web conference firm, has just announced it has raised $6 million of Series B funding, led by existing investors Index Ventures, Nexus India Capital, and Draper Richards, out of the US, Europe and Asia. Having launched its private beta nearly a year ago at DEMOfall 2007, Dimdim’s open source web conference project has grown to reach hundreds of thousands of users, and has been downloaded over 250,000 times.

Being an open source project, Dimdim is free for users, providing an alternative to other web conference tools that dominate the space. Dimdim features the tools you’d expect from a prominent web conference tool, including the ability to share desktops, chat and video conference via webcam. Dimdim hasn’t released specifics about what aspects of the company or product the latest round of funding will go towards, however, it is likely the company plans on building out its feature set, and further marketing its service. Dimdim works closely with developers and potential user bases to find better ways in which to implement its free web conference service.

Dimdim has promoted the cost-efficient aspects of its open source product, as it competes with web conference giant WebEx, and has been steadily rolling out updates to keep its product competitive. Dimdim’s latest project, Project Eagle, was a direct offering to the developer community. The result has been some interesting applications that aren’t even tied in with business use for web conferencing.

iLinc, a provider of web conferencing, video conferencing, and online collaboration services announced today a partnership with a leading U.S. defense contractor. iLinc was selected among its competitors to power the company’s virtual classroom training program, video conferencing, online meetings and online collaboration software.

While the defense contractor has decided to remain anonymous, iLinc has reported that the company is one of the country’s top 10 defense contractors, and is listed as a fortune 500 company. The defense contractor required a solution flexible enough to accommodate both a wide variety of virtual classroom training as well as better enable less formal collaboration and online meetings across locations worldwide. Important to the organization was the ability to leverage high-quality multi-point video conferencing, web conferencing, an easy-to-use interface, and the ability to implement the security policies required for a government defense contractor.

iLinc was chosen over WebEx and Adobe Connect, ultimately selected for its ability to meet the full online collaboration needs of the top-ranked defense contractor to enable participants to collaborate remotely and engage in a truly interactive learning experience. iLinc is one of the top independent providers of web conferencing software and online collaboration solutions, helping organizations collaborate more effectively and easily online.

Citrix has just released version 4 of GoToMeeting and version 2 of GoToWebinar, both which now support 100% Mac compatibility and integrated VoIP to their web conferencing software. These two new features add to an already impressive online collaboration software suite. Mac compatibility and VoIP will further streamline and simplify the already slick interface while throwing in some heavy new features and improvements.

Mac users can now host a online screen sharing session or receive online presentation rights from a PC user. The new VoIP feature is also integrated in the Mac verson of GoToMeeting, allowing full VoIP audio for both presenters and attendees. The only major feature that hasn’t made it yet to the Mac platform is the recording, but according to Citrix, the GoToMeeting team will likely include this feature in an upcoming minor upgrade release.

Highlights of v4 include:

• 100% Mac and PC compatible
• Integrated VoIP
• Best screen-sharing performance in the market
• Integrated audio and screen recording
• International support (growing)
• Integration with other tools such as Outlook and IMs
• Live annotation and mark-up tools
• More manageable and customizable interface