English to German Tech/Engineering IT (Information Technology) modern ways of communication: Video chat

context:
Client contact settlement via chat: why?
Chatting with companies is something most people are not so familiar with. As opposed to America, where customers ask their questions via chat more often, European companies still find it scary to talk to their customers this way. The anonymity, the fact that it is easy accessible, doesn’t that cost more than it brings in? The benefits of live web chat are often still seen as disadvantages in the ‘Old Europe’.
The phenomena of ‘video chat’ seems too futuristic for most companies. Video chat slowly starts to persuade people in the United States, partly because the distances between people are often large. In the Netherlands the first pilots came to nothing a few years ago. Mail order company Wehkamp, and financials like ABN AMRO, MoneYou, Postbank and Rabobank – they all gave video chat a chance about three years ago. After a trial period of a couple of months they each came to the conclusion that client contact settlement via video chat is no sinecure.

FYI: Many of the texts in this series have been written by non-native speakers and the source text is often pretty ropey. The client is French and won't be able to help much but the project manager is trying her best to help with interpretation when I'm unsure.

Here's my query for the PM:
Never heard this term before and the definitions I found on the web don't shed much light into its meaning in this context (see below)

my interpretation: is no magic bullet/panacea OR is no free lunch (obviously the latter isn't idiomatic but you get the idea)...Am I on the right track

# a benefice to which no spiritual or pastoral duties are attached
# an office that involves minimal duties
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

# A sinecure (from Latin sine, without, and cura, care) means an office which requires or involves little or no responsibility, labour, or active ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinecure

# A position that requires no work but still gives a payment
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sinecure

# any job or post that carries a salary but has either very little, or no work attached to it.
www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/dict.htm

# noun - 1. originally, a church benefice not involving the care of souls 2. any office or position providing an income or other advantage but ...
www.gdiproductions.net/srdamd/

And here's her reply:
This is difficult! It would make sense without the word "no" because it would imply that using webcams in business was not successful in Europe because it was seen as working wihtout putting the proper and required effort into the job - i.e. a lazy wzy out. However, as the word "no" is in the sentence, I guess that they are saying they do want an easier way of doing things but that after trials they have concluded that for them the easier way is the traditional way of face to face meetings, emails, letters etc.
I suggest tranlsating literally if there is a German equivalent of sinecure.

My reaction:
There is a German equivalent for "sinecure" but I think it's used purely in the church sense so that's a no-go. Suggesting a literal translation may sound like an easy option to a non-translator but we all know that that's not necessarily the case. I'm inclined to stick with interpreting it as "no panacea".

Any thoughts from my esteemed colleagues here on ProZ.com? :)