我们看到的IBM在12岛面积上的虚拟世界的初步开发项目，基本上包括了商业在虚拟世界的一些基本探索——跟零售商合作探索基本的虚拟世界商业模式（从e-business到V－business）；利用虚拟世界进行内部以及外部的商业合作与教育（SOA Hub以及the GreaterIBM Connection）；还有虚拟世界的创新性实验。
而这只是IBM立志在越来越火暴的3D网络大展拳脚的开始（IBM对3D网络研究的投入是开始自今年年初，加上SL的项目，投入估计接近上亿美金），也只是更多商业巨人参加入到3D网络——下一代互联网络，思考如何利用虚拟世界的能力改变商业模式和创造商业机会的开始。
可以看看下面这三片blog文章（http://irvingwb.typepad.com/blog/），作者是 Irving Wladawsky-Berger博士，IBM公司科技策略与创新部副总裁。文章分别写于今年9月，11月和12月。他谈到了virtual world，3D网络将在未来如何深刻商业和相关的社会制度。
（1）Transforming Business through Virtual Worlds Capabilities
– it's Déjà Vu All Over Again
http://irvingwb.typepad.com/blog/2006/09/transforming_bu.html
（2） Irving in (a Virtual World) Wonderland
http://irvingwb.typepad.com/blog/2006/11/irving_in_a_vir.html
（3）Experimenting with Virtual Worlds in the Real Marketplace
http://irvingwb.typepad.com/blog/2006/12/experimenting_w.html
一下这片CNET在SL对Irving Wladawsky-Berger的访谈非常值得一读
Newsmaker: IBM's virtual pioneer
http://news.com.com/IBM+taps+into+broadband+into+our+brains/2008-1023_3-614****.html
我摘引部分：
In the Second Life area specifically?
Wladawsky-Berger: Second Life is one of the main areas, but not the only one. I really believe that highly visual and collaborative interfaces will become very important in the way we interact with all IT (information technology) applications in the future.
This may be one of the most revolutionary changes in IT because it changes everything and transforms the applications. Second Life is a very good platform for collaboration, but there will be other styles of visual applications as well.
How will Second Life be integrated with other parts of the Internet? Right now, there's not too much overlap.
Wladawsky-Berger: It has to be integrated. We need to make it easy to interoperate with other virtual worlds on the Internet and be able to go back and forth between virtual worlds and Web sites in an easy way. The problem now is the lack of standards like we had with HTTP, HTML (languages for sending and describing Web pages), etc. We need to create them across virtual-world platforms as well as Web sites.
BeauZeau Zhao (question from audience): Does (Second Life company) Linden Lab consult with IBM on their freaking database?
Wladawsky-Berger: We have some conversations with the Lindens, but not much. It is something (on which) we would like to collaborate with them more, especially in the area of standards and open source. I think it would be very good to get the various virtual-world communities to participate in efforts to define standards and to define what it means to interoperate across virtual worlds--something that needs lots of innovation.
Tommy Oz (question from audience): What do you think the role of open source will be in this new emerging system?
Wladawsky-Berger: We need to have open-sourced the major layers of commonality we want across virtual worlds--say, the equivalent of Apache (open-source Web server software) that runs on all platforms and lets them interoperate at some level. It's the same with tools. It would be nice, perhaps, to have avatars be portable so your avatar can attend an event in some other virtual world. That is all stuff that needs to be worked out.
HatHead Rickenbacker (question from audience): Is it too early to begin defining standards for virtual worlds? Does more exploring need to be done first?
Wladawsky-Berger: We need to very much start defining standards. I suspect that it will take us a while because we need the research to be done, but we have to start now and see where it leads us. There are probably people out there with good ideas about standards. We need them to come forth and start collaborating.
Orlander Lucerne (question from audience): What do you view as the greatest opportunity presented by Second Life? Gaming/entertainment, research, marketing, societal development through social networking or something else?
Wladawsky-Berger: I think these are all very important. For Second Life itself, I think it is virtual meetings and collaboration, since this is the nature of the platform. Other virtual-world platforms--for example, World of Warcraft--are more designed for gaming, and others have to emerge for more "serious" business and professional applications with far better security and scalability.
