Yes, I would agree that is one of the many costs associated with a firm. However, I would say that the point of the article is that the increased coordination

Yes, I would agree that is one of the many costs associated with a firm. However, I would say that the point of the article is that the increased coordination and communication of firms outweighs the associated costs of the office environment at present. One could argue that the internet makes the office/firm model of doing business obsolete by reducing the costs of outsourcing. To some extent this has already happened in the open source community as well as in user generated content websites such as wikipedia. In these cases, sophisticated projects are designed and built by individuals working at many locations. The crucial (and seemingly odd) distinction is that these projects are undertaken by individuals for no pay. I would argue that this allows some flexibility in the projects. Jobs, money, and lives rely far less on the success of an open-source project than on the success of a profit driven firm. It remains to be seen whether the contribution model of wikipedia could be translated to a bid model that would replace the traditional for-profit firm. In some industries, such as programming, the bid model has lower costs of decreased cooperation, and thus has occurred more quickly. However, I cannot see it taking root in "heavier" industries (engineering, manufacturing, consumer services) without a significant improvement in computer communication tools.