After people understood that the pandemic risk of H1N1 is real, some backed up in retreat and some decided that it's the good moment to - launch an attack.

Officescape, a provider of office virtualization services, issued a press release putting in focus their experience in facing up H1N1 related absenteeism (yet to come, maybe). In the perspective of the growing fear people will succumb to in the upcoming phases of the influenza menace, absenteeism can lead businesses in a spiral of inefficiency and crippled revenues. To fight this eventuality - go virtual!

The company's Emergency Office solution offers the basic stuff : backup systems, conference rooms, real and virtual, data security, server virtualization and such. They claim they are capable of insuring the continuity of work in a critical situation, and cite the example of helping out Authentium during the 2004 hurricane Ivan passing over Florida.

Now here's the point : As the original post states, the real opportunity in this story is for the virtual reality office and telepresence solutions. Being the natural extension of what Officescape does, the VR could offer needing companies a real and realistic substitute for everyday office activities. For those depending on stability and employees' presence, this would be a substantial shift forward.

In the world of today, independently of the H1N1 outcome, there is no lack of threats. Why not make them a strong marketing argument?

[ via TMCnet ]