When is Second Life Enterprise beta right for you?
by Erica Driver and Sam Driver.
[Edited Monday, November 9th, 2009 for content -- correction and clarification of pricing model and definition of Web-based solutions]
On November 4th, Linden Lab announced that its behind-the-firewall immersive platform, Second Life Enterprise, is now in open beta. Think of SL Enterprise (formerly code-named “Nebraska”) as a micro-Second Life — except it runs on a hardware appliance that resides inside your organization’s data center, is integrated with your enterprise directory, and has been designed to be used for work. The beta version features a Web-based administration interface, professional-looking avatars, various meeting and collaboration spaces, and a couple of basic collaboration tools. Linden Lab also announced that in the first half of 2010 a Second Life Work Marketplace will become available, where customers can buy third-party tools, applications, and content to use with SL Enterprise. Fourteen organizations are currently participating in the SL Enterprise beta program including IBM, Northrop Grumman, Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and Case Western Reserve University.
ThinkBalm recommendations
We’re chin-deep in market analysis and vendor recommendations for client projects and a report we’re working on due out later in the year, tentatively titled, “The Enterprise Immersive Technology Decision-Making Guide.” In light of the fact that prospective SL Enterprise customers have nearly two dozen alternatives they could choose from (see a partial list here), here are some recommendations to put the SL Enterprise announcement in context:
Q: When should SL Enterprise be on my product short list?
A: The more of the following are true, the more likely it is that we’d recommend SL Enterprise to be on your shortlist. Your organization requires:
- The ability to create and modify, at reasonable cost, custom immersive experiences like learning simulations, team-building scenarios, games, data visualization, and process design
- The ability to create from scratch, and possibly animate, virtual replicas of your organization’s buildings, products, or other assets for acculturation, training, or prototyping purposes — without a seven-figure budget and legions of consultants
- A solution that enables you to leverage existing Second Life building and scripting skills, and existing Second Life digital assets your organization already owns
- The ability to hold company events during which 300-400 avatars can be in the same virtual space at the same time (such as for a keynote address)
- Built-in, spatialized voice over IP
- Built-in social networking (the ability to “friend” people, peruse users’ profiles, create groups, etc.)
- Privacy for all content, data, and communication taking place in the immersive environment
- Integration with the enterprise directory for access control and identity management
- Access to a wide range of third-party content, tools, and applications (eventually, as the Second Life Work Marketplace launches and gains momentum).
And you have $55,000 to spend one time front on the appliance and software license for 100 avatars, on the license fee every year, just to keep the appliance up and running, plus an annual recurring fee based on the number of users licensed (starting at $175/user with discounts based on volume), plus a per-user cost once you have more than 100 named users, plus any third-party applications or content and third-party custom development costs.
Q: In what circumstances might an alternative product be more suitable?
A: The more of the following are true, the higher the chances that an alternative offering might be a better fit. Your organization requires:
- The ability to reuse a portfolio of existing 3D assets, like computer-aided design (CAD) models, in the immersive environment
- Direct access from the immersive environment to the diverse community that exists in public virtual worlds
- A very low-cost solution
- A solution that does not depend on IT involvement
- A full-fledged set of business applications for meetings, learning and training, and other use cases, right out of the box
- Easy-to-use, fully-functional document-oriented collaboration tools (e.g., drag-and-drop sharing, collaborative editing, and integration with enterprise document repositories)
- A Web-based solution A solution that runs in a Web browser
- Hyper-realistic graphics
- A product that has been generally available for a couple of years.
© 2009 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.
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Very well done assessment. Very helpful Sam and Erica. This was the first time I made the connection that the $55,000 price tag is annual, not one time purchase price.
Also, I am finding some considering this solution are not considering that those using it will have to be on-site or have a VPN solution in place for both users and developers (contracted or otherwise). This becomes particularly relevant for K-12 and others wanting to give 24×7 experiences to their user base.
One other key distinction between platforms such as OpenSim (which has it’s own set of challenges) is for those desiring to link together two or more Second Life Enterprise instances. I do not believe it is possible to travel from one to another even if both are deployed stand-alone behind a firewall.
The comparison I am most interested in is between an OpenSim and an SLE deployment. You have the tremendous stability, speed, name, and support of SLE v.s. the unbeatable cost, but risky, high-maintenance alpha state of OpenSim. OpenSim also includes the possibility later to connect to a larger grid if policy makers decide to later. I have not heard that this is possible with SLE nor is planned.
My interests in this are sincere as K-12 educators seek help making this decision.
Also I believe the avatars you have pictured are actually that of Neil Katz (IBM) and Steven Aguiar (Naval Undersea Warfare Center), not Mark Kingdon (who has a blonde avatar famous for wearing an headphones attachment). Just reviewed the broadcast to confirm.
Mo Hax:
You are correct; it will not be possible for those on separate SL Enterprise instances to travel back and forth between them. Even if those instances are deployed by the same company, behind the same firewally. I understand this capability is on their roadmap.
About pricing: Yesterday during Linden Lab’s enterprise open office hours I asked whether the $55k price is a one-time upfront fee, or $55k/year. Amanda Van Nuys, the company’s Exec. Dir. of Enterprise Marketing, said that the cost was $55k/year. She gave a few details, such as this price includes both servers (SL and voice) and up to 100 avatars. This is a very unusual pricing model for an enterprise appliance. A more common pricing model for enterprise software, or an appliance, is a one-time license fee plus an annual maintenance fee, and customers can also often choose varying levels of annual support, for an additional fee.
Today I got into a discussion about SL Enterprise pricing at a ThinkBalm Innovation Community event and several people said they think I got it wrong — that the $55k is a one-time upfront fee and there will be an annual fee beyond that that ranges from the $5k to 20% range (opinions varied). That would be a much more reasonable model. I have emails in to Linden Lab for clarification. I will correct my original post, in great embarassment, if it turns out I heard wrong.
Mo Hax: Thanks for the correction re: the image. (My original post included an image of two avatars talking at the Nov. 4th Metanomics event; neither one was Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon.)
Erica, there is certainly no need for embarrassment, these details are anything but easy to obtain. I applaud your vigilant concern for business customers shown in your determination to chase down this data and present it in amazing ways. Brava.
I just confirmed the pricing for SL Enterprise. The $55k is an annual renewable fee.
This sounds more like a rental agreement then a purchase. So do we assume if you do not pay the 55K again in 12 months time the system will automatically disable logins and all your content will be lost unless you unlock it again for another 55K.
If we look at a business case perspective over and above exisiting second life it will be a difficult ROI. you will probably need at least 1/2 a full time person to run and administer the environment, (say 50K), the application itself 55K for 100 users so this comes out to 105K per year. I heard another 5K for support per year from the Lindens during the Q and A (not sure what that was for as we were told it did not occur in the first year only year 2. So year 1 is approx $1050 per concurrent user and year 2 is $1100 per user. If you compare this with some of the other engines like Forterra, Protonmedia, Teleplace, web.alive it is not that unreasonable. If you compare it to opensource tools like opensim, wonderland, croquet than it appears to be overpriced,
Will companies buy/rent SLE? Sure they will. People buy microsoft office when open office is free and does exactly the same thing.
I added a little more to the discussion with this Eight Perspectives on Second Life Enterprise post.
All of the above comments were posted prior to the Nov. 9th update of this blog article.
Today we had a call with Chris Collins, GM Enterprise, and Amanda Van Nuys, Executive Director, Enterprise Marketing, to clarify the pricing model for SL Enterprise. The pricing model for SL Enterprise is a one-time $55,000 up-front fee for the appliance and software license for 100 avatars; plus an annual recurring fee based on the number of users licensed (starting at $175/user with discounts based on volume); plus any third-party applications or content and third-party custom development costs.
While we were at it, we took the opportunity to clarify that by “a Web-based solution” we mean “a solution that runs in a Web browser.”
Apologies for the confusion.
This pricing isn’t bad for a behind the firewall solution. In evaluating pricing having talked with Forterra, ProtonMedia and eventually settling on Teleplace this fits right along side the rest of the marketplace in terms of pricing. Depending on your mix of applications it might actually be less expensive then the other platforms given organizations in the 300+ users when comparing to both hosted and behind the Firewall solutions.
Here is a link to today’s post on Linden Lab’s Second Life Working Inworld blog, “Recap on the Second Life Enterprise launch and PR coverage.” This post contains pricing information. https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/workinginworld/blog/2009/11/09/recap-on-the-second-life-enterprise-launch-and-pr-coverage