Hell - where was the announcement in SL?

Second Life developer Linden Lab is teaming up with IBM?!? huh - damn, I missed this April 3rd press release…..

Second Life developer Linden Lab is teaming up with IBM for a version of the service that companies can run behind their firewall. Meanwhile, a startup called Multiverse is building virtual worlds software that runs in either a standalone client or a Web browser.

Read the article from Mitch Wagner here

This is EXACTLY what I have been predicting. That for Linden Lab to make money, it would have to start licensing corporations so they could run servers behind company firewalls.

One of the chief obstacles for using Second Life for business is that it’s only available as a service. Second Life runs on server farms owned and operated by Linden Lab, and all text chats and VoIP calls in Second Life run through those servers. That makes security-conscious companies reluctant to use Second Life for proprietary conversations.

Using the service being tested by IBM, its users will be able to log in to the private server behind IBM’s firewall, and move back and forth between that and the public Second Life grid, taking their avatars and possessions with them.

IBM will use the service for conferences, special events, and meetings