They have long been used, along with other meeting technologies like digital whiteboards, by corporate teams. When streaming media hit the Internet, small monitor-top cameras began sprouting up everywhere as computer users held conversations with frustratingly poor audio and almost unrecognisable video. Corporations used to be reluctant to embrace e-meetings because more time had been spent worrying about the technology than the agenda. But the boom in bandwidth and user-friendliness have changed all that, allowing businesses to meet and share documents over the Internet or their corporate intranet. Participants can attend without leaving their seat as the system uses RealPlayer, one of the Web's most popular streaming media software packages, to beam meetings to individual desktops.
Employees can even save the presentation to refer to it later.
If a group needs to share documents, it can use a dataconferencing projector. The new range of projectors accept paper, transparencies, floppy discs or CD-ROMS, the contents of which can be beamed to and discussed by remote participants via the Web. E-meeting technologies are already changing the way big companies do business and adding value to the bottom line. Streaming meetings over the Internet might be a start, but some companies are going a step further and developing training modules for delivery over the Web or an intranet. The money saved on flights and accommodation quickly pays for the hardware costs, while employees spend less time away from their work and can keep a copy of the training programme on their hard-drive.