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Forrester Research Report, October 31, 2008: Will Unified Communications Make Virtual Worlds Relevant to Business? by TJ Keitt and Henry Dewing with Ellen Daley, Madiha Ashour, and Chetina Muteba Excerpt: "Virtual worlds have consistently struggled to demonstrate their relevance to business leaders. Problems with the stability of the technology, lack of compelling case studies, and failure to integrate other business tools have all served to exacerbate the situation. Recently, virtual world developer Forterra Systems teamed with IBM to create a blend of unified communications and virtual worlds called Babel Bridge. The promise of this technology for the entire virtual world movement is that, through its revolutions in content integration, unified communications, and spontaneous collaboration, it provides a tool that gives a clear sense of its value and purpose as a collaboration hub for the enterprise." To get the entire report from Forrester Research, click here. Forterra Named Winner of "Innovation in Virtual Worlds for Enterprise" Award at the First Annual Virtual Worlds Innovation Awards   At the recent Virtual World Expo, Forterra Systems was named a winner of the first annual "Innovation in Virtual Worlds for the Enterprise" award. The Virtual World Expo, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center September 3-4, included the Virtual Worlds Innovation Awards. These awards recognize the significant achievements in innovation to companies in five categories: Consumer, Enterprise, Youth, Pioneer, and Overall Innovation. A panel of leading authorities judged all the industry vendors for their contribution to bringing the most impactful features into their platform over the last year for enterprise usage. The panel of top analysts and media included Steve Prentice, VP Research and Fellow, Gartner Group; Erica Driver, Co-Founder and Principal, ThinkBalm; Christian Renaud, CEO, Technology Intelligence Group; Joey Seiller, Editor, Virtual Worlds News; Robert Bloomfield, Founder and Host, Metanomics; and Nic Mitham, Managing Director, K Zero. We are pleased to announce that Forterra won the "Innovation in Virtual Worlds for the Enterprise." This award was presented by Erica Driver. In her presentation of the award, Erica said "Forterra is a small company doing big things in the Immersive Internet platforms market. Forterra was selected for its leadership, releasing advanced collaboration and learning features into its OLIVE platform over the last year, providing value to enterprises." Forterra is thrilled to receive this honor which reflects that industry experts view Forterra as the market leader in the enterprise category. To see the complete list of this year's honorees, visit: http://www.virtualworldsexpo.com/award/index.html. Getting Real Work Done In Virtual Worlds for Information & Knowledge Management Professionals by Erica Driver and Paul Jackson with Connie Moore, Claire Schooley, and Jamie Barnett EXECUTIVE SUMMARY "Virtual worlds like Second Life, There.com, and more business-focused offerings are on the brink of becoming valuable work tools. Major companies and public-sector organizations — such as BP, IBM, Intel, and the US Army — are investing heavily in virtual world technologies. But it’s still early, pioneering days. You’ve practically got to be a gamer to use most of these tools — setup can be arduous, navigating in a 3-D environment takes practice, and processing and bandwidth requirements remain high. But within five years, the 3-D Internet will be as important for work as the Web is today. Information and knowledge management professionals should begin to investigate and experiment with virtual worlds. Use them to try to replicate the experience of working physically alongside others; allow people to work with and share digital 3-D models of physical or theoretical objects; and make remote training and counseling more realistic by incorporating nonverbal communication into same-time, different-place interactions." NOTES Forrester interviewed 14 vendor and user companies, including Forterra Systems, Gemini Mobile Technologies, IBM, Icarus Studios, Kaneva, Linden Lab, PA Consulting, Qwaq, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Unisfair, Virtual Heroes, Vivox, and VRWorkplace.  Click to download PDF file. |
