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Businesses Cut Travel in Katrina's Wake

While Hurricane Katrina wreaked devastating damage and massive

suffering in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, the economic

impact of the storm is being felt far beyond the Gulf Coast

region. With the price of a gallon of gasoline hovering near

three dollars and airlines compensating for rising fuel costs by

increasing round-trip fares by as much as thirty dollars, the

travel budgets of companies across the U.S. are straining at the

seams. Increasing travel costs, combined with general economic

uncertainty, are leading business owners and company executives

to help secure their bottom lines by seeking less expensive

technological alternatives to routine business travel.

According to Erik Boos, VP Marketing of BeamYourScreen

(www.beamyourscreen.com), developers of innovative

technology-based communication tools, "For many companies,

having employees travel to trainings or sending sales

representatives to prospective customers' work sites is no

longer economically feasible."

In addition to gasoline, airfare, hotel, and meal expenses, Erik

Boos notes that traditional business travel consumes a

significant amount of time, thereby negatively impacting

employee productivity. "Flying from coast to coast can take an

entire day, and even local meetings require a significant amount

of drive time, which is compounded by traffic jams and the

challenges of finding parking. This increases the cost of

on-site meetings and represents time that could be spent

generating revenue."

While acknowledging that business travel is sometimes

necessary, Erik Boos asserts that many on-site meetings can be

replaced by online meetings at a fraction of the cost. With

BeamYourScreen's proprietary desktop sharing technology, sales

representatives can conduct live product demonstrations or

presentations to prospective customers and employees can be

trained from remote locations. "Online meetings offer the

advantage that everyone can stay in his or her office and

present slides or collaborate on documents or show applications

instantly. There's no travel time involved, as meetings start

with a click. And there's no travel cost involved, because

everyone stays where they are." says Erik Boos.

After downloading and installing the BeamYourScreen sender

software, the host user can initiate meetings with up to 20

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participants, who connect for free using their Internet

browsers. As guests connect, they can see the host user's

computer desktop. The host can then conduct presentations or

trainings in real time, utilizing the resources on his or her

own computer. The BeamYourScreen technology can also be used to

enhance customer support by demonstrating solutions during

telephone support calls, to enable consultants to easily and

securely review sensitive documents with clients, and to

facilitate team projects by jointly working on documents during

team meetings.

BeamYourScreen offers two types of software licenses, each with

flat rate pricing. Prices range from $29 per month for a single

host/single guest license to $89 per month for multiple hosts/20

guests license. As there is no per-minute or per-session fee,

companies can host as many online meetings as they'd like at no

additional cost. According to Erik Boos, "We're pleased to be

able to offer small and medium-sized businesses the core

functionality of online meeting solutions at a fraction of the

price that large companies pay for fully integrated solutions."

About the author:

Mark Zondler