After distributing podcasting tools and guidelines to their 320,000 employees, IBM is reaping the rewards of this new medium. Podcasts have led to lower phone bills and more internal communication.

One of Edwards’ favorite creations is a weekly status update from IBM’s supply chain organization. The group previously scheduled a weekly conference call with all the employees it needed to coordinate with–a conference that involved as many as 7000 people. Now, supply-chain executives upload a weekly podcast, which staffers can listen to when they want.

“It’s dramatically cheaper,” Edwards said. “Plus you don’t have thousands of people organizing their schedules around this weekly call.”

IBM released the podcasting guidelines as to go along with the blogging guidelines created last year.

IBM has also released public podcasts, such as The Future of… series that has been downloaded over 40,000 times.