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David Greenfield

IBM and Linden Partner on Enterprise-Class Second Life

By | April 3, 2008, 6:08am PDT

Summary: IBM and Linden Labs are partnering to develop a version of Second Life that will live behind the corporate firewall. As I mentioned in my previous post, Second Life is far too fat and clumsy to be taken seriously in the enterprise. Add to that concerns around administration, security and integration with corporate business applications and [...]

IBM and Linden Labs are partnering to develop a version of Second Life that will live behind the corporate firewall.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Second Life is far too fat and clumsy to be taken seriously in the enterprise. Add to that concerns around administration, security and integration with corporate business applications and it’s easy to see why Linden would partner with IBM.

For itself, IBM has gone hog-wild over virtual worlds. “The 3-D Internet is a transformational opportunity that will change many industry processes, gather new revenue streams, and increase productivity and brand opportunity.” says Colin Parris, IBM’s vice president of digital convergence.

The company runs three v-world implementations already. It is working to create interoperability between the v-world providers. IBM’s commitment to SL is pretty extensive as well with more than 5,000 employees on SL and numerous sales training and collaboration exercises.

Putting SL behind a firewall will put the technology in direct competition with other enterprise-class v-world providers, namely Forterra Systems, Proton Media, and Qwaq, makers of the open source Croquet.

IBM can differentiate against these providers by supplying tight integrating between SL and back-end applications. This would allow groups to view and edit business data from with an SL conference room. Today that’s only possible on a more limited basis with HTML and Office applications .

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David Greenfield is the principal in STAnalytics. a global technology-marketing consultancy where he advises enterprises on emerging technologies. He primarily functions as the product marketing manager at Silver Peak Systems.

Disclosure

Dave Greenfield

Much to the chagrin of his clients (and his wife), David Greenfield remains an independent thinker to a fault. Little wonder he's strongly considering an investment in the Trojan body armor. His firm, Strategic Technology Analytics (STAnalytics) provides independent content, insight and analysis to many companies. Current and past customers of his that may or may not be covered in the TeamThink blog include: Audiocodes, Infoblox, Objet Geometries, On-State Communications, Phone.com, Silver Peak Systems, Skype, and Spigit. He currently holds stock options in Silver Peak Systems.

Biography

Dave Greenfield

David Greenfield is the principal in STAnalytics. a global technology-marketing consultancy where he advises enterprises on emerging technologies. He has spent the past 20 years analyzing virtually every area of networking technology. His work has appeared in leading technology publication such as PC Magazine, Network Computing, IT Architect, and Data Communications in the past 10 years focused on real-time social software. He has consulted to and assisted Fortune 500 enterprises in their technology acquisitions. He was the editor and a blogger Network Computing and today works as the product marketing manager at Silver Peak Systems.

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although...
doh123 3rd Apr 2008
although Tixeo doesn't even come close... not nearly close... to what can be done with Second Life. .... its not even in the same league.
0 Votes
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Tixeo 3D webconferencing
cyberalle 3rd Apr 2008
Tixeo offers 3D worlds really business oriented, secure and reliable
http://www.tixeo.com
0 Votes
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although...
doh123 3rd Apr 2008
although Tixeo doesn't even come close... not nearly close... to what can be done with Second Life. .... its not even in the same league.

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