CKE Restaurants, Inc. Selects Pixion’s PictureTalk Web Conferencing Solution for Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s Restaurant Chains
3,400+ Restaurants to Standardize on PictureTalk
PLEASANTON, CA – June 17, 2002 – Pixion, Inc., the world leader in Client-Server-Client™ (CSC) Web conferencing solutions, today announced that CKE Restaurants, Inc., (NYSE: CKR), the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s quick-service restaurants, has selected PictureTalk™ Enterprise
Conference Server (ECS) Web conferencing
solution to support its corporate training programs in more than 3,400
restaurants worldwide.
CKE initially will be using PictureTalk to coordinate the company-wide roll-out of PeopleSoft 8 Finance/Distribution and HRMS software to its offices and remote users. The company estimates that on this one training project alone it will realize a savings of more than $100,000 in travel-related costs. The company later plans to broadly expand the use of PictureTalk to conduct comprehensive Web-based training programs, collaborate on the development of training materials and coordinate the planning and roll-out of new food product introductions.
PictureTalk is the only native cross-platform Web conferencing solution, offering superior ROI, performance and scalability compared with existing peer-to-peer and traditional client-server Web conferencing technologies. In addition to the significant direct travel cost savings, with PictureTalk, CKE expects to dramatically reduce the elapsed time spent on the creation and editing of corporate training materials by more than 50 percent.
“We’ve looked at other Web conferencing solutions, but only PictureTalk could meet our security and cost control requirements,” said Tom Lindblom, director, information technology for CKE Restaurants, Inc. “Because
PictureTalk is installed and managed on our
internal server, we ensure the highest level of security for all Web
meetings, and know exactly
what our enterprise-wide Web conferencing costs
will be. ”
Based on Pixion’s CSC architecture, PictureTalk delivers secure Web conferencing without the bandwidth constraints of the peer-to-peer networking technology employed by most other Web conferencing service providers. Pixion’s CSC architecture eliminates network bottlenecks that drag the performance of peer-to-peer Web meetings down to that of the single slowest participant’s Internet connection. Designed to run on any client platform, including Windows®, Macintosh® and Solaris™,
PictureTalk offers unparalleled ease-of-use
and control, allowing meeting presenters to capture information in
real-time right from
their desktop, and easily share and collaborate
over the Internet with an unlimited number of attendees.
“CKE understands the advantage of leveraging information technology to help it stay at the forefront of operational efficiency in the extremely competitive international restaurant industry,” said Robert DeKoning, Pixion’s president and CEO. “PictureTalk
will not only save the company money, it
will open up a vast new array of communications opportunities for the
entire organization. ”
PictureTalk is designed for a wide range of business applications, including software sales, customer support, product demonstrations, professional training, and distance education.
About CKE Restaurants
CKE Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE: CKR), through its subsidiaries, franchisees and licensees, operates more than 3,400 restaurants, including 2,358 Hardee's restaurants; 971 Carl's Jr. restaurants; 95 La Salsa Fresh Mexican Grills; 34 Green Burrito restaurants; and 27 Timber Lodge Steakhouses, in 44 states and 15 foreign countries.
|