Analyst: Establishing corporate Second Life presence should be carefully considered
Businesses should think very carefully before deploying a corporate presence in Second Life.
Gartner has warned firms that there are various technical issues involved with using the online virtual world that make such a move rather
impractical for some firms.
As such, the analyst says that companies will be seeking a more viable alternative by the end of next year.
Gartner asserted that there are three key issues facing firms that wish to use Second Life: desktop support, Second Life downtime and the emergence of other virtual platforms.
Not all business users will have PCs that are "gaming class" and as such the graphics of Second Life will not appear as they are intended. With regards to downtime, Gartner noted that
although users receive notice via a shared Google calendar, this has been found to be out of date.
What's more, there are lots of challenges creeping into the market that could eventually become superior to Second Life, giving firms cause to wait so that they can weigh up their options.
James Lundy from Gartner commented: "Second Life is acceptable for pilots and prototypes. However, current technical issues would have a significant impact on any organisation that wanted to
use it in a production environment."
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