The Second Life Grid: rock solid infrastructure?

Regarding today's blog post and the new Second Life Grid web site:

http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/09/04/introducing-the-second-life-grid/

http://secondlifegrid.net/

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The whole product/technology platform distinction seems interesting, and I went to take a quick look at the web site. On the front page is a nifty graphic to entice various corporations and organizations to establish a presence in SL. The last one focuses on education, giving Montana State University as an example. It includes this blurb:

"When MSU needed a virtual 3-D platform to design real-life sustainable communities - only the Second Life Grid had the flexible new technologies and rock solid infrastructure they required."

Now I think SL is great, and I even tend to get lumped in with the "LL lovers/groupies/apologists", but even I think this is flagrantly dishonest.

Am I missing something that would be revealed if I took the time to read through the site? Where is this "rock solid infrastructure", and how do I get there?

Perhaps for values of "Rock Solid" including "Delicate as a deep-sea sponge."

Or perhaps it's a matter of comparison. It's rock solid compared to other virtual worlds that give the user such near complete control over thier environment. IE, the only one. (Um, has that changed yet?)

eh. From my perspective anything a marketing agent writes is pure rhetoric anyways.

As I was reading that front page, this line stepped out as outrageous "Second Life is the showcase virtual world WHERE end users can create an infinite variety of content and participate in a robust virtual economy, free of traditional social and technological restrictions.”

SL is clearly bound by ALL traditional social restrictions as we have come to find out in the last 4-5 months.

That may have been the truth a year ago but how could you really say somthing like that with a striaght face today?

Its a little ironic that the previous two blog entries about this rock-solid, robust infrastructure were "Login difficulties" and "LindeX purchase difficulties"

Perhaps there is a robust Secondlifegrid but LL aren't using it to run SL?

However, it looks like a rebranding exercise to me aimed at getting communities into SL whereas secondlife.com is aimed at getting individuals into SL.

The "programs" looking like aggregation of existing resources: the Education Program is essentially the existing maillist, wiki etc. and the discount on islands! The opensource program the existing mallist, wiki and download resources etc...

It is a little worrying that the Grid platform includes "massive existing base of end users [and user-created content] that can be leveraged in your own virtual world offering" - did you know that you were part of the SL Grid Infrastructure

Perhaps we need a new LL dictionary

Rock-solid = can work for whole days without falling over
Robust = laggy
Massive user base = about 40,000 at any one time, and no more that 40 in any one place

Matthew