17 November 2004

Auto Id Association Moves Into A Virtual World

AIM UK, the auto ID industryıs trade association, has placed its members in a virtual meeting environment using the Marratech web conferencing solution, it was announced today (Wednesday) at Wave, the Web, Audio and Video collaboration event at Londonıs Olympia.

Communications manager Andrew Callaway said: "AIMıs members are at the cutting edge of auto ID technology, from advanced bar coding applications to radio frequency identification. With 50 strategic partners representing more than 100,000 UK businesses, getting people together for meetings can be a major headache.

"We trialled Marratech over several weeks and found that the high level of interaction and the ability to share documents and applications results in highly effective meetings. The fact that people no longer have to travel saves an enormous amount of time."

Founded in 1984, AIM UK has played a key role in raising awareness of auto ID technologies and in promoting their uptake in virtually every industry. Today, it represents members through major projects involving the National Health Service, the Department of Trade and Industry and stakeholders in the food supply chain. It is also a senior partner in the proposed new European Centre of Excellence for Automatic Identification.

As well as improving efficiency and productivity, teleworking or using the Internet instead of travelling, is increasingly being seen as an environmentally acceptable solution to the every day meeting demands of business and commerce. AIM UK will be using Internet collaboration for on-demand meetings and technology briefings, as well as presenting on-line seminars, or 'webinars', to large remote audiences using the Marratech auditorium option.

According to Mr Callaway, the ability to have secure meetings with other organisations around the world and to hold group meetings on demand without having to travel adds a valuable new resource to the AIM UK operation.

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