Linden Lab unveils Sadville: Enterprise Edition Some companies like IBM have an uncanny attraction to Linden Lab's virtual world, Second Life. They claim the software provides a 3-D collaboration space that's viscerally superior to what traditional mediums such as teleconferencing, instant messaging, or video conferencing can provide. Trouble is, hapless employees ushered …
Seriously. I'll be first to say a product like this long since coming (disclosure: I'm a 5-year veteran of SL, I have ADHD and get bored playing MMORPGS). And enterprise version makes a hell of a lot of sense.... just not... *gag* US$55,000.
It makes sense because you can do alot of things using SL cheaper than in reality. Tweaking models of houses and buildings, or submarine interiors, setting up multiuser voice conference will be a cinch (if the PC can run the client). You can make bar charts a lot more interesting, but you still need Quacktime for streaming video.
And, holding meetings in "virtual space" is not only 'super whizbang cool' for pencil pushers, but it's cheaper than flying them to your boring non-virtual office in solid platinum, champagne-fueled Gulfstreams flown by FAA-certified strippers.
I'm waiting for my company to get one so that I can put my 'talents' to use on salary, and get away with making everyone in my office a furry!
Oh my goodness, imagine working for a company that makes its employees collaborate through Second Life. To be effective it would have to be the mandatory collaboration tool, much like Office Communicator is ours. I don't mind if people voluntarily join the legions of Sadville, but I wouldn't want to be forced into it.
Ahh yes, Second Life.
Wonderfully authored piece of software - its so good an effort that there is simply no way to install it (or its updates) in an unattended way onto a PC (at least last time I checked), you can't stop it asking the user stupid questions such as 'Which folder to install the update into?'. Ummm, how about 'C:\program files\Second Life\' where it exists right now!?
This coupled with the fact that updates come about reasonably often - as soon as an update surfaces, old clients no longer connect to second life.
So how are they going to justify an enterprise server and charge people $55,000 when they can't even write an enterprise suitable client program?
Somebody pulllease tell me they've corrected this?
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I was tasked with coming up with some kind of a solution to this for where I work - in the end I was forced into building a VM running a custom piece of software I wrote which monitors the SL download location for a new version every so often, installs the software with help from AutoHotKey macros, then makes it available to run across the network - there's just no way of making it install without stopping to ask stupid questions, a bad thing for the end-user who has no rights to install the software on the machine they're using.
Its just luck that nobody at Linden Labs has changed the way you download SL, otherwise my admittedly hacky bodgey solution would probably have stopped working by now!
Yes it is still functioning surprisingly!
For the life of me I cannot imagine any justification to using such an "application" in a business environment.
Unless you're a house constructor or salesman, in which case it could be nice to have virtual models of what you sell for potential customers to check out before going on location to eyeball things in person - saves time and is carbon-friendly.
For the rest, get typing into your spreadsheet or whatever and get us out of the economic rut we're in instead of wasting time fooling around with potentially furry things !
They're already there.
The US Army are doing recruiting, letting you experience parachuting under the supervision of a dodgy drill-sergeant 'bot.
The USAF have something, that is undoubtedly spectacular but needs the application of extreme graphics.
The USN has a deserted model of the NUWC.
I prefer the JPL/NASA area. A Saturn V is somewhat large: you have to dial up your graphics system to be able to see all of it.
And the sex is better in ASCII: rather that relying on scripting and animations, the persons involved actually have to pay attention to each other, even when the dialogue reads like bad internet porn.
(It's the Rain Island Army Union wet weather combat jacket, since you ask.)
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