Asia embraces the Virtual Office, an article that depicts how the SARS epidemic gave birth to the Virtual Office, and a boost for computer sales in the region.  And once having sampled it, companies are embracing this corporate culture of mobility.

Some excerpts :

".... And thanks to the broad range of technologies now available, the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) last year and the financial savings that tele-working can mean, an increasing number of Asian businesses have embraced the concept of the virtual office."  

" ... Using text messaging by mobile phone, e-mail, online chat and Internet voice conferencing, he says he has been able to smoothly manage an operation with dozens of employees in two cities in the Southern Philippines.  “Nothing compares to being there,” he said, “but if you've trained people well at what they need to do, the system works.” As the owner of a medium-size business, Go chose a system that costs next to nothing to operate. After investing in new PCs for his offices, mobile phones for himself and senior executives, and a laptop, he uses inexpensive or free software to do things that once only big-spending multinationals could.   Instead of spending thousands of dollars on long distance calls, Go uses the Skype.com voice-over-Internet system to speak to employees in the office. Through its website, Skype gives away a stripped-down version of the program at no cost."  

".....As a Cisco Systems white paper put it: “Building a mobile environment has less to do with installing technology than with creating a corporate culture around mobility.” – International Herald Tribune"