Making The Second Life Connection

Chris Kelley hosted what many would recognize as an open house or a grand opening that solution providers regularly attend. He had all of the markings of a great vendor event -- product documentations, expert presentations, case studies and even free t-shirts for all who attended. What made this event different is that it didn't happen in the physical world. Kelley opened a Second Life island for UGS -- a leader in computer-aided design and product life-cycle management software -- making the company one of a growing list of IT vendors establishing a presence in the 3D online virtual world.

"We started to see the natural use of Second Life in 3D by some of our customers, so it's something we thought we'd like to try out," says Kelley, vice president of partner and platform marketing at UGS.

Slide Show: Vendors Embrace Second Life

IT vendors aren't necessarily selling products directly through Second Life, although some have the capability. Most are using their Second Life presence to foster relationships, conduct training and nurture their products' user groups. While still a nascent venture for many, most vendors see tremendous potential in using Second Life to training, enable and link their channel partners.

"This is an influence thing, like the two-dimensional Web was in '95, when we didn't make money through the Internet," Kelley says. "We're not going to transfer Linden-dollars into real dollars, but we may be able to drive license renewals through Second Life."

Second Life is the brainchild of Philip Rosedale, CEO and founder of Linden Labs, who launched the virtual world in 1999 as a place for commerce and social networking. It's arguably the largest and most well-known of a dozen or so virtual worlds, boasting nearly 6 million members and host to household name corporations such as Mercedes-Benz, American Apparel and Best Buy's Geek Squad. Even the country of Sweden has opened an embassy in this online universe.

Read about CRN editor Heather Clancy's adventures in Second Life.

The online world has its own currency -- Linden Dollars -- which is exchangeable for hard currency; Reuters has established an exchange index because the level of Second Life commerce is reaching into the millions monthly. And BusinessWeek has devoted a team to covering Second Life and its ever-increasing number of "islands," or unique environments.

Inc. magazine called Second Life "the world's coolest marketplace," but it's becoming so much more for adventuresome IT companies. UGS, Lenovo, Sun Microsystems, SunBelt Software, AMD, Cisco Systems and Dell each have established a significant Second Life presence. IBM alone has 29 islands and four in development, and will even use it as a platform for presentations at its annual PartnerWorld conference this week.

"We're getting partners to meeting with other partners from around the world without leaving their desks," says Christopher Wong, vice president of strategy and marketing for IBM's Developer Relations. "I've had partners who want to go global and they see Second Life as a means for doing that."

NEXT: The Second Life Experience