No matter where you are for business

Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta

The word "virtual" is becoming more and more vague. We hear the word being used virtually every day. And, each time we hear the term "virtual office", we wonder what it means. Does it mean an office in the virtual world, or does it mean that we have an office that is virtual?

There are companies all over the world that can provide us with a fully furnished office, a prestigious address in the Central Business District that we can print on our business card and letterhead, a phone number that will be answered in our company's name, a high-end computer, professional secretarial service, meeting rooms complete with presentation tools, a lounge and a kitchenette -- virtually everything that we need to run our business.

This type of arrangement is usually offered by establishments that prefer to call themselves "serviced offices".

In Jakarta, one can set up a virtual office at one of the serviced offices such as The Executive Center Indonesia in Danamon Aetna Building, The CEO Suite in Wisma GKBI building, Plaza Business Center at Menara KADIN tower, HQ Global Workplaces at Ariobimo Sentral building and the Jakarta American Club in Wisma Kota BNI business complex. Yet, the office is virtual, because we may be there for a couple of days and then move to another city in another country next week.

A virtual office such as this one is a legitimate one. A reputable virtual office provider will normally ask us to sign contracts that say that we agree not to conduct any illicit business on the premises.

The fact that we move around does not mean that we cannot be reached, as simple or complex technologies such as call forwarding, cellphones, fax, e-mail, SMS, unified messaging and other communication tools enable others to contact us at any time, regardless of our actual location. Any message received at our virtual office will be forwarded to us, so we can give the appropriate response whether we happen to be in Sydney, Seoul, Taipei, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore or Jakarta.

In other words, this type of virtual office means that no matter where we are at a given time, we are virtually in our virtual office. People still can communicate with us as if we were there at that address. This is the traditional meaning of virtual office.

There is a different type of virtual office, though, and we may define it as an office in the virtual world. Technologies such as Instant Messaging (IM) and Presence and Availability Management make it possible for us to have an office in Cyberspace. A number of companies, which specialize in corporate communication solutions, are working hard to provide the building blocks for this type of office.

First, a lot of people may be very familiar with IM, and some of them may be using the facility on a daily basis. It really reflects the nature of human beings, who are always asking for more. For the rest of us, e-mail already allows us to communicate cheaply and effectively with each other. For many, the word "instant" should be added to their communication.

Basically, if you have friends or family around the world, the Internet-based IM may serve as a virtual meeting place for the entire group. IM does not cost anything so far, and portals like Yahoo! and Microsoft's MSN offer this service for free. Yahoo calls its IM service "Yahoo Messenger", while Microsoft calls its own "Windows Messenger".

To use the services, you will have to download the application from their respective Web sites. Then you register yourself and add a list of friends that you want to be included in your group- which is much like Yahoo's e-group. When you run the application, it will scour the Internet and give you the names of whoever among your contacts in the group is online. Then you can page any of these people and send him or her a message. A chat window will appear with your messages. One is able to read and respond much like a typical telephone call. It is just like sending e-mail messages back and forth, only it resembles a real-world discussion more closely.

Some IM services also add the facility to hold a realtime voice conversation or even video conferencing. All you need is a multimedia PC-and a Webcam for capturing images. You can call a phone from your PC, or you can call another PC anywhere on the Internet.

Other IM services can be found at dozens of other sites, including Messenger.com (imessenger.com), Prodigy (http://pim.prodigy.net/) and, of course, AOL. Efforts are also underway to make IM a secure place and fit for supporting business communication, so companies such as imwave (imwave.com), Bantu (bantu.com) and Jabber Inc. (jabber.com) are working hard to promote the use of secured IM in the business environment.

Availability and presence management takes instant messaging to new heights. Take Personity (personity.com), for example. This company, in which the U.S. telecommunications giant Motorola has a share, is working on applications that will allow us to contact other people in the group even though they are not on the Internet. Personity's Instant Messaging and Presence Services (IMPS) already enables wireless devices from Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson to exchange instant messages and presence information much like what we can do over the Internet.

So, the next time Jakarta is hit by a major flood -- and unfortunately most likely it will -- you know that your boss will always want you to report to work.

You may stay home, but you cannot hide from him. The only time that you may be able to escape is when there is no electricity in the house or your cellphone network is overloaded.

Otherwise, you had better count on it that he will be using all the next-generation technologies such as availability and presence management to keep his office running in the virtual world.