Nuggets of Gold

By Mark Evans | Published: November 25, 2008

All the attention about Nortel’s crumbling stock price, strategic uncertainty and financial challenges does a pretty good job of overshadowing the fact there are some interesting products being developed by smart people. Of course, they get little these days, which is hardly surprising.

A project – albeit small – that seems to getting some traction is Web.Alive. It’s a virtual world platform being developed to let companies interact in new and different ways. It was spawned from Nortel’s internal venture capital operation, which provides a small amount of startup equity to employees with good ideas.

Originally known as Project Chainsaw, Web.Alive is slowly but surely getting more attention from people intrigued by applying virtual world technologies to real-world business issues.

Christian Renaud wrote a post on Technology Intelligence Group’s blog that he was impressed by what Nortel is doing with Web.Alive after experiencing it first-hand.

The user interaction is more gamelike than most virtual worlds, with easy ASWD/mouse controls for the most part, which addresses an ongoing concern of mine with regards to making virtual world environments as easy for a first-time user as possible. Also, they have integrated the DiamondWare spatial audio code for excellent and clear audio, with great visual notifications if someone is speaking (or standing) off-camera.

Nortel’s next challenge, he said, is integrating Web.Alive into its existing product portfolio “so this doesn’t become a technology orphan….and suffer from lack of corporate (funding) attention as a result.” He suggest the most obvious targets the education/learning and enterprise collaboration markets.

To be clear, Web.alive is a tiny project but it’s a good sign that innovation is still alive and well within Nortel. (Note: According to the Hyperconnected Enterprise, 3% of Nortel’s R&D budget is being allocated to an incubation program aimed at exploring new markets outside its existing business units)

For more on what Web.Alive, here’s a video that explains why Nortel is doing it featuring Arn Hynman, the chief architect for Web.Alive.

Technorati Tags:

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]
This entry was posted in Technology. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
  • less

    “so this doesn’t become a technology orphan….and suffer from lack of corporate (funding) attention as a result.”

    Wow. Thats a pretty ballsy thing to say in public. I like him already.

    “Suffering orphans”… are they a common occurence where he works? Is he trying to train the eyes of his world on the project to avoid its getting greened over?

  • srs

    Nortel cannot base their whole business model on something which is very similar to second life. i think Nortel has tried to play 'catch-up' with the whole virtual reality thing. C'mon Mark do you really think that this is innovation ?? Is this revolutionizing technology?? Does this web.alive have the WOW factor ? ..simple answer is NO !!
    This technology has been played up by the ex-CTO and his cronies as the next big thing. Again, this highlights the lack of vision and real experts at NOrtel who can lead Nortel into a tangential market. ahhh..I hope I did not forget to mention the 10 million dollar Diamondware purchase to integrate into web.alive. What a waste !!!

  • Destruction

    Strange timing? Even Google seems to be distancing itself from this… the same google who wishes to solve world hunger and peace :-)

    http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/google…

  • please

    Christian (btw, not Christine, Mark) is not a Nortel employee, but I agree it is pretty ballsy these days to have something nice to say about a new Nortel product! ;-)

  • blue

    Christian is a former Cisco employee who spent a lot of time analyzing this space…
    http://blogs.cisco.com/virtualworlds/comments/s…

  • RightAngleTurn

    How is this going to be monetized?

  • lobk

    I still don't understand who they are marketing this to. Can anyone here honestly say you would pitch this to your VPs , to try this on your nework? I can't come up with one valid arguement on why I would want to purchase this other then “You'll get a realy cool avatar while you chat”.

  • Tongue.In.Cheek

    One of the growth markets over the next 18 to 24 months is Collaboration. There's Cisco WebEx, Citrix GoToMeeting, Microsoft LiveMeeting, IBM Sametime Unyte and Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro as some of the available solutions. However, none of these solutions offers a Virtualized Environment where you can have real time person-to-person engagement rather than a broadcast, listen and respond type of environment.

    If people can interact across broad distances in a group setting, then there is an opportunity for value.

  • lobk

    So this is nothing more then a chat engine with an avatar.

    You can't do anything in this virtual world other then chat! There are many chat client that does that and many for free. So again, am I missing something here?

  • less

    He is wearing a Nortel shirt. He is a Nortel shill.

  • less

    The recent ooCoo TV commericial made me not want stuff like it.

  • please

    *sigh* You're convolving 2 different things from Mark's post. The quotes you pulled out admiringly above: “so this doesn’t become a technology orphan….and suffer from lack of corporate (funding) attention as a result.” “Suffering orphans”… come from the blogger Christian Renaud. The picture and YouTube vid are of Arn Hyndman, who is indeed a Nortel employee.

  • copper_athlon

    In case you didn't know, Cisco will turn the lights off for five days.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idIN…

  • less

    Its an acceptable pracitce: Mike Z is an American who doesn't know (the) culture. The secular global bear is hurting Nortel.

  • protosphere

    The idea of avatars strikes me as humorous in a serious business environment?

    Telepresence sounds more enticing however expensive at a couple hundred grand. No one puts fake crowns or horns on the participants there.

    Cisco has beat them there too, especially given the higher ticket item and security in support.

    Interesting Nortel is also the only player without a consumer product given they want to play with avatars now. With a 37 cent stock price (under 4 cents pre extreme 10X reverse split) will they even be around to sell a thing let alone support it?

  • broadbandbill

    They are marketing it to themselves cause no one listens to them anymore…–bb

  • broadbandbill

    virtual dollars…–bb

  • broadbandbill

    Proto,

    When you want to you can be pretty insightful at times…–bb

  • broadbandbill

    TIC,

    How long before each gets a 'Vrtualized Environment' within the next 18-24 months. Getting technology is a lot easier than building a channel that has confidence in its supplier…–bb

  • Mr Real

    i am depressed now.
    i recommended two ideas way cooler when i was at NT a few years ago. it also had a potential to open a new market for NT to the tune of ten billion USD a year. now google is working on both of those ideas btw. they are already 10% there.
    needless to say, at NT those ideas didn't go anywhere because they were in the “cost cutting mode” and/or those ideas were not part of NT's core competency (i guess that was because they didn't have anything to do with restating their books, because believe me, back then nothing else was important enough to work on).
    and now on the verge of ch11 they invest in THIS STUFF?!?!?!
    It's all about who's ear you have in NT. That's why I quit NT and work for a company where my ideas are appreciated, implemented and revenue generating 3 months after I came up with them.

  • Ringo

    Mark – are you joking ? 10M $ invested to get a company whose products don't align or integrate with Nortel's own product portfolio. And you get what – a video game solution ! I think this project is a shameful display of wasted money and resources. Thinking that the valuation of company today is ~ 225 M $ .

    To call it a nugget of gold is definitely a joke.

  • exnt2

    correction. $194 million market cap. Almost reaching my prediction of beating Extreme at 174 million. and they only have ethernet make 1 billion in sales and just about 1000 people.

    call it web.dead and move on folks. the last thing on peoples minds is animated avatars in meetings.

  • exnt2

    ok did you try getting into VCs? I hear this all the time. dont mean to attack you but many people have great ideas. if you were passionate you would have tried to go out on your own. or gone over to google. they are a pretty cool co.

  • exnt2

    hey Arn

    try this with your CIO first running Nortel on this crap.

  • Mr Real

    i wasn't in the position to pursue VCs. i won't go into details as to why, but just trust me on that one.
    as for going to work for google, that's essentially what i did. no, it's not google specifically, but it's kind of a startup where i am now able to get my ideas implemented and sold as part of solutions to customers. next cycle around i'll push VCs if i have any ideas left. many people have ideas, but i noticed that when i was younger i had more ideas and larger ideas. now that i've been in this industry for a while i'm a lot more cautious and less entrepreneurial.
    if i'm any indication there must be companies out there full of people who have been around for very long time and have lost their entrepreneurial spirit almost entirely. Do you know any such companies? I think you do.

  • http://nortelinsider.wordpress.com/ Desk Jockey

    While this is “cool” it is certainly useless from a business perspective and serves as an example of the poor leadership that has plagued Nortel. Thankfully Roese is gone, but not because of his incompetence but only because the leadership desires to package up parts of NT for the eventual going-out-of-business sale. (I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day)

    When you see this sort of stuff it breaks your heart.

  • Another Nortel Watcher

    You know, sometimes innovations come from technology – a good idea gets developed and then a business is built around it. And sometimes innovations come from need – technology is applied to solve an existing problem. In either case, business growth can result.

    With this particular item, I sense that it's time to stop and figure out how to make money. The Second Life concept is no longer new, it's years old. Nortel's version has been bouncing around in public for a while now too. Somebody needs to sit down and figure out a monetization strategy. And if it doesn't compute, this effort needs to be spun out or sold off. This is not the right time in Nortel's history to be playing with dolls if there isn't a clear path to money.

    First question: what is the value prop? Second question: who is the customer? Third question: what problem does this address? Fourth question: how big is the market? etc………. (basically the 10-chart pitch deck)

    Basic start-up stuff that gets lost in a dysfunctional big company.

  • less

    BOTTOM LINE

    Nortel has put together a platform that may not be the most feature loaded virtual world, but one that addresses business concerns today. The SAAS delivery model, voice quality, and easy interface makes this a platform that should be closely considered by today’s large companies.

    For Nortel, WebAlive is a significant introduction. More than the sales of the actual platform, the potential for integration services built on top of WebAlive should provide an additional revenue stream. Establish virtual world players will need to find their differentiation vis-à-vis the WebAlive solution. Competitive points include the lack of application services, product immaturity, and broader questions around Nortel financial viability

  • less

    BOTTOM LINE

    Nortel has put together a platform that may not be the most feature loaded virtual world, but one that addresses business concerns today. The SAAS delivery model, voice quality, and easy interface makes this a platform that should be closely considered by today’s large companies.

    For Nortel, WebAlive is a significant introduction. More than the sales of the actual platform, the potential for integration services built on top of WebAlive should provide an additional revenue stream. Establish virtual world players will need to find their differentiation vis-à-vis the WebAlive solution. Competitive points include the lack of application services, product immaturity, and broader questions around Nortel financial viability

  • TwitterCounter for @markevans
  • Seeking Alpha Certified