IBM Deploys Private ‘Second Life’ Virtual World
IBM Deploys Private ‘Second Life’ Virtual World
April 4, 2008: IBM has announced a partnership with Linden Lab, creators of the virtual world Second Life to host a private section of the virtual world on big blue’s own servers and to explore future enterprise solutions.
Virtual worlds are often associated with the consumer gaming scene, with titles like World of Warcraft and Everquest providing users with sprawling virtualised fantasy and science fiction environments to explore and adventure in. Then there’s Second Life, which is a virtual world based more on reality, offering user created avatars the chance to do everything from buying and owning a house to hanging out at the local shopping centre, only instead of doing it at your local Westfield, you’re able to do it virtually within the Second Life world.
While at first glance this doesn’t sound like much of a place for the corporate IT world, in essence it’s become a new frontier of social networking and offers businesses the chance to explore commercial opportunities within a popular culture medium. There are already many organisations with their own presence within the Second Life world, such as Telstra who’ve bought their own Australia-themed island for users to navigate through.
IBM plans to pilot a solution that will enable employees to seamlessly cross over into the public sections of the virtual world and back into the private IBM-only section that will be protected by firewalls. Big blue draws the similarity between using a web browser to access public websites as well as corporate websites, as the functionality will be similar only it will involve flying characters called 'avatars' instead of your trusty web browser.
“As virtual world technologies and platforms become more commonplace, we see a need for an enterprise-ready solution that offers the same content creation capabilities but adds new levels of security and scalability,” said Colin Parris, Vice President, Digital Convergence, IBM. “Combining IBM and Linden Lab’s solutions together has the potential to make custom-created environments a viable option for enterprises.”
The business model for Second Life is a unique one, for Linden Lab offers access to the virtual world for free, but sells “Linden Dollars” (the in-world currency) for real cash. This has lead to everything from real estate empires to shopping networks created by in-world entrepreneurs looking to make their fortune.
“The Second Life Grid was built to allow enterprises to reap the benefits and methodologies of virtual worlds,” said Ginsu Yoon, Vice President of Business Affairs, Linden Lab. “We share a vision that virtual world technologies and collaboration represent the future of business communication. Deploying regions of the Second Life Grid behind IBM’s firewall is a major milestone in the evolution of the Internet and will help accelerate the growth and adoption of all virtual worlds.”