AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Venture Beat

Plenty of people are skeptical that enterprises will embrace virtual worlds as a venue for doing serious business. IBM, on the other hand, is a total believer that 3-D worlds such as Second Life augur the future of online commerce.

IBM is announcing a partnership with Second Life producer Linden Lab today to create an enterprise-class version of Second Life behind a corporate firewall. IBM and Linden Lab believe that the move will strengthen the security of the virtual world, and thereby make it more attractive to corporations who are considering using it as a business platform, said Jim Spohrer, director of service research at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose.

With the added security, businesses can enable employees to login into Second Life for corporate training purposes. (No, they’re not going to use their avatars to have virtual sex or pretend to be the opposite gender.) Spohrer said that businesses can rent areas known as “islands” in Second Life and run dress rehearsals for everything from a fire drill to a hospital emergency…more