Danvers, Mass.-based lighting manufacturer Osram Sylvania, a division of Osram GmbH, recently instituted travel restrictions to control costs and wanted to give travel-leery employees an alternative. So the company's IT department responded in a variety of ways, says Lou Saviano, director of IT. "The reception of these solutions has been excellent," Saviano says. "In fact, we will need to expand the infrastructure to accommodate the demand. The expansion costs will be more cost effective than traveling. A lot of positive feedback is concerning the reduction in impact to business and personal lives. You can avoid the mountain of e-mails that otherwise seem to build while one travels." The company is:
Using Microsoft Corp.'s NetMeeting at the desktop level for individual meetings.
Using video conferencing internally for group meetings among manufacturing plants in the United States, Canada and Europe. ("The culture of our European counterparts is to conduct video versus voice-only conferences," Saviano says.)
Experimenting with Webcasting and video conferencing through a local area network. These are still in the development phase.
