In response to Steven Shankland’s article about IBM starting a “Second Life business unit”, Maris Fogel made some interesting observations on Dave Farber’s IP list about the connection between IBM’s cell processor and the new Second Life Unit:
A very interesting development. I believe that IBM can see a ways into the
future here, and that they are using an early market position to their advantage.My thought is this: In the upcoming years IBM will see their revolutionary Cell
processor chip in hundreds of millions of households around the world via game
console systems from a variety of manufacturers. The realism of Second Life’s
graphics is rather low at the moment, but IBM’s chip can easily overcome that.
Virtual realms as per Second Life also require very high bandwidth to deliver
the experience to the end-user, but if we look around the world very high-speed
broadband is becoming more available all the time.So we have life-like real-time graphics rendering (via the Cell chip), climbing
broadband Internet speeds (Japan?, Korea?), available on relatively inexpensive
consumer devices, in a hundred million homes world-wide, within 3-4 years…No wonder IBM thinks that virtual realms will take off in the future.
There are a few pieces that I do not know about, such as the human-machine
interface technologies, but I suspect that if the Cell processor lives up to
it’s claims then processing real-time video input from a digital camera will be
simple, and that will allow for the display of facial expressions and body
language (consumer cameras are at 10 megapixels now, and new models will focus
on video capture quality because that is primarily how the younger generation
uses them; convenient, eh?)At this rate an entire virtual industry could take off right under our noses :)
In a followup to the list, Amy Wohl disagreed:
It is provocative to think of IBM in the consumer virtual worlds business,
but I keep remembering that IBM is no longer in ANY consumer businesses, but
its own choice. Unless they are planning to change that strategy, I would
think that this venture into the future is on another path.Note that the IBM spokesman talks about “training, conferences and
Commerce,” in the Shankland article, B2B notions, I think.On Irving Wladawsky-Berger’s own site, he
describes the Shankland interview and adds some comments of his own. Here
there are references to “societal” possibilities for IBM and virtual reality
— the blog notes healthcare, training and education as possibilities.Certainly IBM can always choose to go off in another direction — $90
Billion companies have deep pockets and lots of choices. But I think IBM’s
venture into virtual reality is about placing itself in a leadership
position in what it thinks could be a new way of doing business. Of course,
it is planning to learn about the opportunities as it tries out the new
technology and this may move them into more consumer-oriented markets.
Of course, both Maris and Amy could be right. Advanced processors will make Second Life-like services more, well, lifelike, and the virtual reality of the future will be much richer and more immersive than today’s services. And that is irrespective of whether IBM actually wants to be in consumer businesses or not (which they likely don’t, as Amy observes.)
P.S. Irving’s blog entry is well worth a read. He concludes:
It is important to remember that ten years ago many found the early Web-based applications rather weird and faddish, and not something that would likely take hold in business. Indeed some of the e-businesses that were created at the height of the dot-com frenzy were silly, and the marketplace dealt with them accordingly. But, I think that most will agree that the Internet and e-business have had a revolutionary impact on the world.
I am hoping that something similar will happen once again. I suspect that, over time, it will.
Me too.