NEW YORK … January 5, 2005 –According to “The Virtual Workplace: Leveraging Real-Time
Communications in the Enterprise,” a new research benchmark from Nemertes Research, companies can
save as much as $10 million per year by leveraging “virtual workers”—employees who work in a different
geographic location from their supervisors. The number of virtual workers has increased by 800% over
the past five years; 58% of IT executives describe their company as a “virtual workplace” today, and
another 9% say they’re “almost there.”

The virtual workplace lets companies save money in three key areas: facilities, personnel, and
travel. Nemertes has found that companies can save, on average, $5-10 million per year on facilities
costs by supporting virtual workers, and more than $4 million per year by not moving or replacing
employees and instead allowing them to work remotely.

Fully 77% of companies that participated in the benchmark currently use real-time
communications tools as part of their virtual workplace efforts—and 81% of IT executives expect these
tools to become as pervasive in their company as e-mail is today. Business drivers include “quick
communications” (key to 45% of participants), “increased productivity” (37%) and “lowering costs” (21%).

But many companies have yet to fully leverage real-time communications—or even to get control of
them within IT. For instance, only 37% of companies are standardized on instant-messaging applications or
services. “A lot of IT executives are waiting for other managers and executives to recognize the value in realtime
communications tools before spending money on them,” says Melanie Turek, Nemertes senior vice
president. “It’s really up to these IT people to educate and coax their constituents along.”

This multi-volume, 150-page benchmark is the result of six months of in-depth interviews with more
than 40 IT executives at mid-to-large organizations across a range of industries. It provides detailed
recommendations on leveraging real-time communications to enable the virtual workplace, and includes
several groundbreaking cost models that detail how companies can save money by doing so.

For more information contact Christine Zimmerman,815-484-8480 or chris@nemertes.com