This is one of the only ways I know of to develop real camaraderie with remote offices, especially if people were not very good friends to begin with. There's something about the "wormhole in space" that makes them part of the team, in a way that IRC and conference calls do not.<p>I've seen this in use at large companies, and it really works but it's expensive. If there's now a cheap option, that's good news.
This totally reminded me of something posted to Twitter by Cisco yesterday - <a href="http://twitpic.com/b5tl3" rel="nofollow">http://twitpic.com/b5tl3</a>. Obviously the Cisco setup is <i>a lot</i> more expensive but it looks incredible.