There are no elves or orcs, but IBM's new online world for
business meetings could prove as exciting as a virtual fantasy
realm for recession-hit companies looking to cut travel costs while
promoting collaboration.
Big Blue's new Virtual Collaboration for Lotus Sametime service,
launched last week at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston,
offers a host of tools that allow employees and business partners
to interact in 3D spaces without leaving their desks.
Users can select colleagues from their Lotus Sametime contact
list and invite them, in avatar form, into the online world, where
there's boardrooms, auditoriums, and collaboration spaces. The
space supports a number of online chat, voice, and presentation
tools to facilitate full communication. IBM worked with VoIP
specialist Vivox on the voice component.
Citing independent research, IBM claims business interest in
virtual worlds is growing. A recent survey by analysts at research
firm ThinkBalm found that more than half the respondents expected
to derive economic benefit from so-called immersive technologies
this year.
More than half said such technologies are less expensive than
face-to-face meetings that often involve travel costs such as
hotels and air fare, and are more cost effective than Web
conferencing.
One institution that's testing Virtual Collaboration for Lotus
Sametime is Northcentral Technical College in Wisconsin. The
college holds online courses in IBM's 3D environment, which CIO
Chet Strebe said is more appropriate for business and educational
use than consumer focused online worlds like Second Life.
"Although we can already conduct class through other worlds,
there is little classroom control or security," said Strebe. "With
IBM's new virtual meeting service, teachers would be able to tell
which students are present and better control the environment,"
said Strebe. Others trialing the service include Manpower,
Raytheon, and Northeastern University.
IBM is also testing its virtual world internally. More than
2,500 IBM employees have been using it since February. "Virtual
Collaboration for Lotus Sametime is part of IBM's ongoing work to
redefine the nature of online meetings," said John Allessio, IBM's
VP for Lotus software services.