Can Telepresence Cure Flu-Related Travel Phobia?
With no one certain just how bad the swine flu outbreak is going to get, and folks increasingly talking about a pandemic, the flu is landing some blows on an already unsteady economy. Service and travel industries are taking especially hard hits. Pharmaceutical stocks, however, are rising right along with fear levels since their products could be used to fight the flu. I wonder if the telepresence market won’t see a similar boost. As I wrote back in October, business executives seemed bullish on it due to its ability to help companies cut costly business travel. Companies are still in a travel-cutting mode, evidenced by an announcement that crossed my desk this morning, that the Independent Oracle Users Group is offering virtual sessions for its annual users group conference next week in Orlando. The combination of an iffy economy and a possible pandemic may lead more companies to investigate telepresence. They should, writes IT Business Edge blogger Rob Enderle. In a post yesterday, h
