Journey on the Information Superhighway : Businesses See Video Meetings as Cheap, Quick and Effective

Aaron Goldberg figures he’s eaten enough airplane peanuts to sink a battleship.

As executive vice president of Computer Intelligence InfoCorp., a market research firm in Santa Clara, he travels often. And he is eager for the day when video conference systems will make it possible for him to stay home more.

“That’s appealing to frequent fliers like me,” he said.

Video conferencing will cut business expenses in many ways, Goldberg said. His human resources staff, for example, will no longer have to make trips to the company’s two-employee office in Portland, Ore., to explain policy changes.

As the technology becomes available later in this decade, video conferencing will become increasingly popular among businesses, cities and schools, industry observers say. It will probably be too expensive for home use, but it will offer potential savings for companies with big travel budgets.

Training programs could also be conducted electronically. When a company launches a product, the headquarters could broadcast a video to its entire sales force in the field.

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Some businesses are already pushing ahead. Three partners--Digital Equipment Corp., Dimension Cable Services and Arizona State University--have created a test network that electronically links some Phoenix manufacturers with their subcontractors and suppliers.

The network allows the contractors to bid on jobs, send purchase orders and revise product specifications, all electronically. The users can send and receive both text and images, including complicated two- and three-dimensional computer-aided design (CAD) drawings.

The first user was McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems in Phoenix.

Small businesses may be interested, too.

David Carroll, a Garden Grove computer animator, spends at least $8.95 a month to send electronic mail or get technical help through CompuServe. He said he would also like to use the on-line service to seek new customers.

“I’d want to provide my own service as a small business connecting with customers,” Carroll said. “With 500 channels, there would be room for things like that. But it all depends on the cost.”

Some cities are already experimenting with two-way communication. Part of Garden Grove’s traffic signal system, for example, is coordinated electronically through a system created by Paragon Cable. And both Fountain Valley and Garden Grove control their water distribution through another Paragon system.

In Irvine, some elementary schools have used interactive cable for years to teach the English as a Second Language program.

A big concern about video conferences, though, is how to ensure privacy.

Laurel L. Wilkening, chancellor of UC Irvine, said an administrative video conference she set up was intercepted, and the information was leaked.

“I don’t know if we’re ever going to do that again,” she said.

But Safi U. Qureshey, chief executive of AST Research Inc. in Irvine, said security systems will evolve. And he noted that banks have kept their two-way electronic-fund transactions secure for years.