One of the more interesting stories within Nortel over the past few months has been the launch of its web.alive platform – a three-dimensional, Second Life-like environment that companies can use to collaborate, train and do business.
Its development has generated both intrigue and skepticism but Nortel may actually on to something given Lenovo has signed on as its first customer (here’s the press release). The computer maker’s “eLounge” virtual store will use web.alive to give consumers a place to browse, attend product demos and tutorials given by virtual staff, get customer service, and communicate with Lenovo and other consumers.
In a statement, Phil Edholm, Enterprise CTO, Nortel, said:
“Innovative technologies like web.alive fuel the engine behind Nortel’s success. Nortel will continue to introduce innovative technologies that deliver more immersive communications platforms for our customers. Nortel’s Incubation Program was born from a culture of seeing problems not as liabilities, but as opportunities for innovation.”
If you’re interested in the eLounge, you can check it out here. Mac users like me, unfortunately, are out of luck.
More: For a detailed review on eLounge, check out this blog post on It’s All Virtual.
That is an interesting application. I guess it will eventually become a trend where an e-commerce store has to provide a virtual world like experience in the future to enhance the experience. Things are really becoming more interesting in this space.
TongueInCheek
I visited the e-lounge and it took about 5 minutes for the client to download and install before gaining access to the environment. From there a couple of minutes to fiddle with Avatar and audio settings. I had default audio as my PC speakers so needed to adjust to my stereo headset. Within 10 minutes I was in wandering around and talking to people.
There were a few Nortel Web.Alive staff in the environment willing to guide people around to show them the environment. The audio was pretty cool when in an area with multiple people as the audio volume from multiple sources was managed by your distance from each of the audio sources (other people in the environment). You could also interact with the Lenovo Laptops on display to some degree.
When you think big-picture, there are lots of potential applications for Web.Alive. Pretty cool but it does take a little bit of time to get used to the navigation tools etc.
http://blogs.nortel.com/buzzboard Bo Gowan
Hey Mark, I've seen several people ask about Mac support, so I asked our w.a guru Arn Hyndman about it and he gave me this info:
We don't support OS X at the moment – Mac users can run web.alive via boot camp. We love Mac's (and Linux), but have to focus our attentions on the largest markets first. For example, we started with only supporting IE, but have since added Firefox and Chrome support. Additional platforms will come over time.
web.alive is Alive
One of the more interesting stories within Nortel over the past few months has been the launch of its web.alive platform – a three-dimensional, Second Life-like environment that companies can use to collaborate, train and do business.
Its development has generated both intrigue and skepticism but Nortel may actually on to something given Lenovo has signed on as its first customer (here’s the press release). The computer maker’s “eLounge” virtual store will use web.alive to give consumers a place to browse, attend product demos and tutorials given by virtual staff, get customer service, and communicate with Lenovo and other consumers.
In a statement, Phil Edholm, Enterprise CTO, Nortel, said:
If you’re interested in the eLounge, you can check it out here. Mac users like me, unfortunately, are out of luck.
More: For a detailed review on eLounge, check out this blog post on It’s All Virtual.
Technorati Tags: lenovo, Nortel, web.alive