Delivering Enterprise Ready Virtual World Collaboration

Forterra has been a partner with IBM since early 2007. Our OLIVE product has been certified on the IBM x series Linux and blade servers. In the spring of 2008 Forterra signed a teaming agreement with the IBM software division to create a Lotus® Sametime® plug-in for OLIVE. The jointly created Virtual Collaboration solution provides new means of communicating and solving problems for distributed work groups in the financial service, healthcare, technology, and government industries. The first phase of this plug-in will be commercially released in Q4, 2008. Forterra will also be delivering integration to the IBM WebSphere® application server in 2009.

The integrated Virtual Collaboration solution from IBM and Forterra takes group productivity to a new level, incorporating not only voice, video, and media, but it adds the important element of a sense of presence and digital identity.  This integration builds stronger relationships, creates more engaging, memorable experiences, and enables faster problem solving and decision making, all while eliminating the need to travel.

Features of Forterra’s OLIVE
• Immersive 3D environments
• Realistic avatars (humans)
• Display user identity
• VoiP based spatially accurate audio
• Display any document or media
- MS Office docs, streaming video, desktop sharing, web or SCORM content, white boarding
• Record/replay of 3D session

Features of Lotus Sametime
• IM, buddy lists 
• Search for people and content
• Presence and location
• Meeting management
- Invitation and scheduling
• Manage community
- Membership and permissions
- Content and documents
• Unified telephony

Benefits:
The fusion of enterprise-oriented social networking with 3D technology providing realistic human interaction and meeting environments is the catalyst for new ways to work with colleagues.
• More engaging, memorable experiences for short and long meetings
• Eliminate travel associated with quarterly or yearly off-sites or training
• Faster problem solving and time to insight in a group setting
• Better integration of remote and mobile workers into company culture
• Familiar business tools for the internet generation

This solution fills the gap between audio and web conferencing on the low end, and telepresence and video conferencing on the high end. If you'd like more information about virtual world collaboration solutions for your organization, contact us.

For more details, you can also check out the resources in the right column.