IBM's vice president of technical strategy and innovation Irving Wladawsky-Berger has announced the creation of a group inside the company dedicated to working with virtual worlds like Second Life. The creation of the new 'emerging business opportunity' (EBO) fits with Wladawsky-Berger's experience in moving IBM towards emerging technology. His past endeavors have led the way in areas such as e-commerce and Linux.
At present IBM has one public island in Second Life, but 12 more will be opened up by Monday. There are an estimated 1,000 active people in their community right now, and much growth in this area is planned for the future.
Wladawsky-Berger beleives that virtual worlds are simply more natural interfaces than the ones we currently use: "I really believe that highly visual and collaborative interfaces will become very important in the way we interact with all IT applications in the future, [...] There is something very human about visual interfaces. I almost think of text-based interfaces, including browsers, as 'narrowband' into our brains, whereas visual interfaces are 'broadband' into our brains."
Hmm.. I think this is old news. As far as I know. Irving Wladawski-Berger retired a couple of months ago, and IBM has way more than 1 public island these days. Plus, the article you're linking to, dates from december 2006.
Yeah it is. This got reposted by mistake. Sorry 'bout that!
LoL, if i had a $ for every time i've done this, i'd have around erm.. $13.50 i guess hhh!
Thanks for pointing it out, i got caught in this too, easily done :)