Meantime Communications Broadband Multimedia Inc, the San Francisco start-up formed to exploit Asynchronous Transfer Mode technology to carry multimedia over broadband fibre optic networks (CI No 2,044), has won a contract from Deutsche Bundespost’s Deutsches Telepost Consulting to enable the German government to move its capital to Berlin without having to relocate all the officials and bureaucrats now based in Bonn. Broad band Multimedia will help the consultancy to develop desktop videoconferencing that will enable officials to talk face-to-face and exchange and view graphics, video and documents over high-speed fibre optic links between the two cities. The company reckons that the project is the most extensive example of virtual workplace yet projected, and says it will save Germany millions of marks while avoiding undue disruption of operations and officials’ personal lives as the move progresses.
