Conference lines
It has been on the lips of analysts for months, and finally the cost of doing business in an unsettled world economy forces the second and third biggest companies in a financial services sector to merge. The two chief executives walk into nearly identical rooms in Geneva, Switzerland, and New York in the United States. A faux mahogany boardroom table in the New York office abuts a wall dominated by a 200-centimetre plasma screen, its bottom edge resting below the table's surface. A high-definition video camera captures what happens in the room and relays it in real-time over a secured, high-speed internet protocol television broadcast-quality link to an identically equipped facility in Geneva.