Video tour of ThinkBalm’s Distillery — an immersive technology selection experience

by Erica Driver and Sam Driver.

In January, we published a ThinkBalm Immersive Internet analyst report, The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide. This report is a use case-based guide designed to aid business decision makers in the enterprise immersive software selection process. In February, we launched “the Distillery,” an immersive technology selection experience built around the concepts in the report. Our intention with the Distillery is to replace the boring ole’ webinar with an engaging, interactive activity, and create an unforgettable immersive learning experience.

Here is a 9-minute mini video tour of the Distillery lead by ThinkBalm analyst Erica Driver. Note that you can also visit the Distillery yourself first-hand; here is the Second Life URL (SLURL).

To develop The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide, we held structured briefings with nineteen enterprise immersive software vendors (list here) and conducted interviews with fifteen early adopters who were involved in the technology selection process in their organizations. In the report, we present “if/then” scenarios and highlight good-fit vendors for common situations, with a focus on the most prevalent use cases: meetings, conferences, and learning and training.

While grain mash is processed and distilled to make whiskey, ThinkBalm’s technology selection process helps business and technology decision makers winnow their vendor options from dozens down to just a few.

1. Stop 1 on the tour is the Options Vat, where we discuss core business questions.
2. Stop 2 is the Requirements Room, where we lead participants through a discussion about the features and functions needed to satisfy the most common use cases: small meetings, large meetings and conferences, and learning and training.
3. Stop 3 is the Filter Tower, where we discuss important limiting factors like security concerns, system integration requirements, scalability requirements, and technology prerequisites.
4. The final stop is the Recommendations Room.

Enjoy the video tour! And do let us know if you have any questions or could use a hand with the immersive technology selection process in your organization.

© 2010 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.

Linden Lab’s Second Life Viewer 2 Beta – what does it mean for business users?

By Sam Driver.

On February 23, 2010, Linden Lab announced the release of their Second Life Viewer 2 Beta program. The viewer is a downloaded application that creates the connection between your computer and the public virtual world of Second Life. The changes built into this new viewer improve the user interface (UI), making it easier to navigate and communicate in the environment, and to add some critical functionality (Shared Media).

As one of the most well known tools for immersive work, Second Life is where most business users first experienced a virtual world. The technology evolved from a recreational virtual world into a cosmopolitan environment that serves many types of users. From a business perspective, the DIY capabilities for building and animating 3D content have been a great boon for experiments and pilots performed by technology enthusiasts. As early adopters tried to bring this technology to a broader audience at work, they ran into a few hurdles: the UI was very complex, and the dizzying world around a new user could be overwhelming. (For more information see the Sept. 23, 2009 ThinkBalm report, Crossing the Chasm, One Implementation at a Time.)

The success of early experiments at work has led to a large collection of other technology vendors (list here) that design immersive technology application and content for work. This design gap represents a challenge for Linden Lab to remain competitive in a small and crowded market. The release of this new viewer is an important step toward making Second Life a modern and streamlined business tool.

Pressure on all of the vendors in this space is toward a simpler user experience, to appeal to the broadest array of potential users. We’ve defined some of the factors that are important to consider when you select an appropriate technology for your use case (See the January 19^th, 2010 ThinkBalm report, The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide). Resolving two of these factors, ease of use and core functionality, can often be difficult because they run counter to each other: if you want a lot of functionality, you’ll need controls, and more controls means more complexity. Finding the balance between these two is like trying to hit a moving target. As more capabilities become available, the market wants them, but in many cases, development won’t be backward compatible, so we see major version changes that can disrupt content or investments in earlier versions.

Our take: We see the release of Viewer 2 Beta and the Shared Media capability as fundamental improvements for work-related use of Second Life. Co-browsing the web and web-embedded media have been standard features of many tools for a year. There are still some features missing, and some web collaboration may be difficult due to synchronization issues. However, this is a typical approach for Linden Lab: they often build core content and rely on partners to develop additional content, applications and other assets. We expect that common document formats will be supported over time, either in the core product, or through third party developers. Feedback during the Beta period will drive a lot of this development.

• Many people will find Viewer 2 easier to use than previous versions. Personally, we find that Viewer 2 is a much easier UI than previous versions. The context for controls is more modern and in keeping with web style. The visual separation of public communication from private is a great addition as well. Fewer buttons at first glance make adoption by new users less intimidating, but all of the capabilities for power users are there, and in many cases, are more streamlined or easy to use.
• New Shared Media feature is a step forward. Shared Media and drag-and-drop web addresses on objects in Second Life is a tremendous upgrade from third-party tools or the dreaded image file upload process. There are still some steps to get content up on the web and in a format that will work in Second Life, but from there, drag-and-drop works. This is a stumbling block for many business users who don’t know how to upload content properly, or are prevented by corporate security restrictions. While application development is already underway by partners in the Second Life ecosystem, the prospect of managing third-party IP and assets has implications from purchasing policies to help desk support: large-scale deployments will have to factor in costs associated with these issues.
• You can still do everything you could do before — which is both good and bad. Viewer 2 Beta and Shared Media haven’t changed the nature of Second Life. As one of the few environments that allows end-user object creation within the environment, there is a layer of complexity that will complicate the UI. Use case and business needs will drive this decision: if you need user-generated content, you’ll have to accept a more complex tool. For those use cases where user-created content is an important consideration, the streamlined viewer and new web media capabilities are a great addition. The business model that supports Second Life results in a complex ecosystem of content developers that charge for their IP in many different ways, and the resulting permission system designed to protect these assets can be a major problem for end users.

Overall, we see this announcement as a healthy sign that the technology vendors are continuing to refine their products to suit user demand and incorporate rapidly advancing technology. For example, we saw a major upgrades to Teleplace (V3.0) and 3DXplorer (V5) in the second half of 2009, and the introduction of Forterra Meeting Labs prior to the acquisition of Forterra by SAIC. We expect further technology improvement announcements from Linden Lab and others in 2010.

© 2010 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.

Without financial backing, Project Wonderland’s future is in question

by Erica Driver and Sam Driver.                                                                                     

At the end of January, Project Wonderland development lead Nicole Yankelovich broke the news that Oracle would no longer be applying development resources to the Project Wonderland enterprise immersive software platform. (For more information about Project Wonderland see the January 19, 2010 ThinkBalm report, The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide.) Oracle laid off most if not all of the Project Wonderland team, which was part of Sun Labs.

In the last few weeks, we spoke with Nicole Yankelovich as well as executives from three small companies Yankelovich cited as third-party software vendors or service providers that offer software products or custom solutions based on Wonderland: Amphisocial, Green Phosphor, and Indusgeeks. Yankelovich is currently working with the open source community to establish a non-profit organization and is pursuing a vision of creating a vibrant ecosystem where third parties can create Wonderland content and contribute to the platform — where people can even distribute entire virtual worlds. But many aspects of Project Wonderland’s future are up in the air.

Our take:

• Oracle’s move to cut Wonderland funding wasn’t altogether surprising . . . Oracle uses immersive software for some internal and customer-facing events – the company has held conferences like Oracle Developer Day and Oracle Enterprise 2.0 online using virtual event platform Unisfair. But the company does not have immersive technology in its product portfolio and has not been a part of the Immersive Internet discourse to date. And in general, we don’t think of Oracle as a company that has a strong history in developing experimental new technology in-house. Instead, Oracle tends to make acquisitions to flesh out its product portfolio.
• . . . Though a role exists for immersive technology in Oracle’s portfolio. With Oracle’s focus on enterprise applications, middleware, and now hardware (with the Sun acquisition), opportunities exist to incorporate immersive technology into the company’s portfolio, thereby massively differentiating Oracle products in the market and helping customers decrease their costs and increase user engagement. Some of Oracle’s opportunities include incorporating immersive technology into Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, for 3D data visualization, and into products like Oracle Beehive or Oracle Communications Converged Application Server, for next-generation unified communications solutions.
• This action does not shed much light on Oracle’s perspective on immersive technology. Oracle may have made the decision to cut funding for Project Wonderland for a variety of reasons. Project Wonderland was an open source project, not a revenue-generating software product; no model was in place for deriving revenue from it. Perhaps Wonderland didn’t have traction in the markets Oracle most wants to pursue — though Wonderland had achieved its greatest traction in the education sector, which is one of the industries Oracle serves. Or it could be that immersive technology is simply too early-stage to pique the interest of the strategists at Oracle.
• Unless Project Wonderland finds another major backer, it will not remain competitive. The core Wonderland project team is working to secure new backing. If the team can pull together a funded organization, then Wonderland may have a bright future. If, however, the core team move on to new full-time positions, then the outlook for Wonderland is grim. Without development resources devoted to the project, Wonderland will be slow to add new core features and functionality. It will be up to third-party software developers, like Amphisocial, to add new features through Wonderland’s module layer. Without backing for Wonderland’s core development team, the project’s competitors — both open source and commercial — will catch up in areas where Wonderland is currently strong, like security features, platform independence, Java support, and audio/video capabilities.
• Loss of major backing has eroded confidence in the Wonderland platform. While Yankelovich said that Wonderland supporters — particularly in the education sector — have stepped up to donate hardware and other resources to the project, these donations aren’t enough to fund substantial new development, marketing, and project coordination. Sid Banerjee of Indusgeeks summed it up this way: “While no big company is backing Wonderland, it would be difficult for Wonderland to compete as an enterprise grade platform. Though we still believe it can thrive as an open source platform for the education sector.”
• Further consolidation is inevitable in this emerging technology market. At the beginning of February, SAIC announced that it had acquired Forterra OLIVE (see ThinkBalm’s posts about it here and here). The market is filling with an increasing number of enterprise immersive software products — we are covering nearly two dozen. We sized the enterprise immersive software market at $50M USD in 2009 — too small to support such a large number of vendors.[1] The business decision maker’s job is hard enough when adopting new technology. Consolidation in the market is inevitable and necessary. There are simply too many vendors in this space for business decision makers to easily choose appropriate technologies.

For Java shops that want to engage in low-cost experimentation, Project Wonderland continues to remain a solid enterprise immersive platform. But given Project Wonderland’s current state of upheaval, we recommend that business and technology decision makers looking for software for a pilot or production approach Project Wonderland with caution unless and until Project Wonderland receives substantial backing.

© 2010 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.

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[1] This conservative number includes only revenue from software licenses and maintenance fees, appliance sales, and subscription fees collected from customers who were using the software for work (as opposed to recreational uses). We did not include revenue from professional services (e.g., custom development projects and implementation services). For more information, see the January 19, 2010 ThinkBalm report, The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide.

ThinkBalm’s “Distillery” — an immersive technology selection experience

by Erica Driver and Sam Driver.

What do whiskey and enterprise immersive software have in common? Not much, unless you’re on ThinkBalm Island in Second Life (or, shortly, the ThinkBalm region of ReactionGrid). We are excited to announce that construction on The Distillery is complete!

About the Distillery

In January, we published a ThinkBalm Immersive Internet analyst report titled The Enterprise Immersive Software Decision-Making Guide, a use case-based guide designed to aid business decision makers in the enterprise immersive software selection process. This report was sponsored by Linden Lab, ProtonMedia, Teleplace, and Virtual Italian Parks. To develop this report, ThinkBalm analysts held structured briefings with nineteen enterprise immersive software vendors and conducted interviews with fifteen early adopters who were involved in the technology selection process. In the report, we present “if/then” scenarios and highlight good-fit vendors for common situations, with a focus on the most prevalent use cases: meetings, conferences, and learning and training.

The report offers guidance on how to: 1) ask core business questions to frame the discussion, 2) choose a research-and-demo, do-it-yourself, or combination approach, 3) identify requirements based on your use case, and 4) filter your options based on important limiters. The Distillery is an immersive experience built around these concepts. Our intentions are to replace the boring ole’ webinar with an engaging, interactive activity, and create an unforgettable immersive learning experience.

Instead of grain mash being processed and distilled to make whiskey, ThinkBalm’s technology selection process helps business and technology decision makers winnow their vendor options from dozens down to just a few. Stop 1 on the tour is the Options Vat, where we discuss core business questions. Stop 2 is the Requirements Room, where we lead participants through a discussion about the features and functions needed to satisfy the most common use cases: small meetings, large meetings and conferences, and learning and training. Stop 3 is the Filter tower, where we discuss important limiting factors like security concerns, system integration requirements, scalability requirements, and technology prerequisites. The final stop is the Recommendations Room.

Preliminary tour schedule

ThinkBalm will be offering public tours of The Distillery in Second Life at the following times. All times are Second Life time, which is the same as Pacific time. Here is the Time Zone Converter, should you need it.

• Tuesday, March 2, 8-9AM Second Life time (morning)
• Wednesday, March 3, 6-7AM Second Life time (morning)
• Monday, March 8, 5-6PM Second Life time (evening)

We will publish additional tour dates as they are scheduled. We also offer private and semi-private tours for members of the ThinkBalm Innovation Community and for ThinkBalm clients. Let us know if you’re interested.

© 2010 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.

Coming up: ThinkBalm Innovation Community’s problem-solving session #1

by Erica Driver.

Next week, the ThinkBalm Innovation Community will experiment with a new event format: a problem-solving session (details here). Two members of the community will each have about 20 minutes to present an Immersive Internet-related problem they are working on and get input from other participants. We expect about a dozen and a half community members — all Immersive Internet advocates, implementers, explorers and technology marketers — to participate in this event. Participants will collaborate together in an immersive environment (we will meet in ThinkBalm’s Teleplace environment) to increase their first-hand experience with immersive technology and collectively build the body of knowledge about how virtual worlds, immersive learning environments, and virtual event platforms can benefit business. 

Part I: Laura Handrick, VP of Innovation at The Maids International

Laura Handrick, VP of Innovation at The Maids International will share a bit about what her team is working on and will pose the following questions for discussion:

1. How can a virtual learning space be used to entice / encourage / inspire management to replicate best practices in the real world?
2. What kinds of scripted objects should we create that are unique to our business (such as our proprietary back-pack vacuum)?
3. What kinds of giveaways might inspire visitors to return? Should we create virtual uniforms that hang on a rack that anyone visiting is free to wear?
4. How much security should we have?  We’re in a business with competitors, but not too worried that they will steal our ideas by visiting our virtual world space. However, once we begin to provide video programs, manuals, etc., we’ll have to prevent them from being replicated.

Part II: Richard Hackathorn, founder and president of Bolder Technology, Inc.

Richard Hackathorn, founder and president of Bolder Technology, Inc. will share some thoughts about Immersive Intelligence, which is a collaborative data-driven decision process for understanding complex systems using immersive spaces. To explore and mature the concept of Immersive Intelligence, he will raise the following questions for discussion:

1. What are the use cases? Expected business benefits? Unique contributions?
2. What is the architecture? How should a virtual world interact with a massive database?
3. How can millions of objects be created that convey rich visualization of the underlying data?
4. How do you visualize complex analytics acting on the base data?
5. What are some good current examples that illustrate key concepts?
6. How do we weave the collaborative elements into data visualization? To make decisions?
7. How do we engage people from the arts, architecture, sciences, etc?
8. How should we organize an open community? Financial model?

If you are an Immersive Internet advocate, implementer, explorer, or technology marketer and are interested in participating in this or future ThinkBalm Innovation Community events, we invite you to request membership in our LinkedIn group. You can find more info here.

© 2010 ThinkBalm. All rights reserved.

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