I’ll start off here by stating the obvious – yesterday was a bad day for Nortel. Moreover, in this article, there’s some discussion about a few poor attempts at innovation, summarized by the notion that ”Web 2.0 products just didn’t seem to fit for Nortel”. One such innovation attempt has been Project Chainsaw, which created the recently-launched Web.Alive program.
Web.alive is a three-dimensional program that looks and feels similar to Second Life. Companies can purchase the program and use the virtual environment for training, collaboration, hosting conferences, and most notably, sales and marketing.
The program is, if nothing else, intriguing. This blogger speculated (albeit skeptically) about the benefits for using this “Second Life meets business world” technology for business communication. He was impressed by Nortel’s licensing of the Unreal Gaming Engine to create an aesthetically appealing platform. For a visual explanation, here’s a youtube link of Chief Architect Arn Hyndman talking about web.alive.
One company that clearly believes in this technology is Lenovo, the world’s 4th largest PC manufacturer. Lenovo is the first business to make use of web.alive, and launched the Lenovo eLounge late last week. The Lenovo eLounge is, at the moment, basically being used as a sales venue, where customers can view the products and speak to each other (and salespeople) in real time, through their avatars.
So on the day that Nortel announced bankruptcy, I decided to check out the technology that, in the words of their CTO Phil Edholm, “fuel[s] the engine behind Nortel’s success”. Here’s a link to the Lenovo eLounge. If you aren’t interested in buying a Lenovo product, wait until after 9 pm to check it out – for reasons I’ll explain.
When I registered for my avatar and checked out the Lenovo eLounge last night, I was surprised who I ran into. The other avatars in there (this was last night around 11 pm) weren’t Lenovo sales reps. It was Nortel’s Project Chainsaw Design team, most notably Nick Sauriol and Brent Hadden, who were more than happy to chat with me about the development of web.alive and the opportunities it provides for enterprises. On the day when Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection, this team sounded optimistic, and assured me that more companies are in the process of using web.alive to create their own virtual lounges. They also explained that the Lenovo sales avatars generally punch out around 9pm, so the Nortel team hangs out in the lounge after that to answer questions, provide tech help and generally explain the web.alive technology to newcomers. If you find anything in this article or the links here of interest, I’d definately recommend dropping by the lounge to visit the Project Chainsaw team. These guys love to chat about their technology (given that the Lenovo eLounge is their pilot, and it’s been released for less than a week). They’re also happy to give you a tour of the lounge and show off some of its unique features and services (which you can read about here under the “services” page).
From a sales perspective, think of traditional online sales, with facilitated customer-to-customer discussion, on-hand concierges, and the use of avatar technology that, so far, has been reserved mainly for entertainment purposes (like the virtual Barbie world, for instance).
Now, what’s my take on the Lenovo eLounge? I would probably go back if I were looking to purchase a Lenovo product, but I think the site could be improved by more added features. Aside from previewing Lenovo products and speaking to sales avatars, there isn’t a whole lot to do in the eLounge, so it won’t sell much on entertainment or additional features (although I enjoyed speaking to the Nortel team). That’s not to say, however, that future web.alive-based sites can’t improve on this pilot (which I’m sure they will).
Obviously, there’s some issues, such as the financial health of both Nortel (as mentioned) and Lenovo (who recently announced restructuring). Most of all, I question whether a Lenovo-only site has any benefit over companies that incorporate their sales “stores” into a larger realm, as Microsoft has with Second Life.
That said, I do find this new site very intriguing and worth following. When researching for a purchase, it’s definately easier to discuss verbally, via avatar, than to post on a message board and wait for a response.
Would you use this service if you were interested in a Lenovo product? I’d love to hear your opinions on it.
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