While the natives of Second Life are restless due to infrastructure challenges that are causing teleports to fail, inventory to disappear and transaction loops to fall short, IBM and Sun are leaping into new industrial-strength virtual world turf.
Both companies have been publicly active in Second Life and elsewhere in the metaverse for quite a while. Both have left their mark there providing tools and spirited open-source knowledge-sharing.
But going back to its roots, IBM announced last week they are building a specialized mainframe computer that is specifically designed to power 3-D environments. It will incorporate the same Cell processor that Sony’s PlayStation 3 uses.
The new computer system is intended to be an “enterprise-level” platform upon which new generation virtual worlds will be built. IBM’s focus here is on facilitating secure, lifelike 3D graphic environments and thousands-per-second transactions within those environments. However, IBM sees uses beyond virtual reality into mapping, 3-D showrooms and new types of resource planning and customer relationship management. According to David Gelardi, vice president, Industry Solutions at IBM. “what we are doing is starting with online gaming and then moving to a Web-based commercial world."
The first company to work with IBM and the Cell mainframe is Brazilian online gaming company Hoplon Infotainment. Hoplon is developing the software and service-oriented architecture for a new virtual world and online gaming community. According to IBM, the two companies will be delivering this new online environment at the end of this year.
And aiming toward Wonderland, Sun Microsystems released news yesterday of its internal 3D environment for employee collaboration. The goal is for Sun teams to do all their real work within the environment – allowing private work and shared work to be seamless.
Sun has dubbed the virtual environment “MPK20” christening it within the same naming convention used for its physical campus in Menlo Park, California, U.S. (they have 19 physical buildings there).
The virtual team rooms are meant to bring distributed teams together to work, collaborate and communicate. Indeed Sun has integrated their high-fidelity audio system, which brings lifelike directional sound to the space; and their Porta-Person meeting system.
To rapidly deploy the virtual work concept, Sun is currently using the open source platform, Project Darkstar, combined with a java-based game engine.
These are serious environments by companies who mean “business.” These are companies that can rightfully claim a hand in building the commercial Internet. They are walking the virtual world walk of the future, and it would behoove us to tag along by getting involved in 3D spaces. It is way beyond "just for fun" now.
IBM's press release is here.
More information on Sun's MPK20 environment here.
For a virtual tour of Sun Labs go here.
Photo credit: Sun Microsystems
May 2, 2007
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