Immersive workspaces LL partnership

in response to this blog

http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/10/21/immersive-workspaces/

how will this affect the solution providers?

http://secondlife.com/solution_providers/listings.php

why were the solution providers notified of this partnership a day after (12:30pm Oct21) the public announcement?

http://lindenlab.com/pressroom/releases/10_20_08

is this contrary to previous LL policy?
http://secondlifegrid.net/spt/resources/business


feel free to discuss anything in response to this blog, community issues, businesses, corporate, microeconomy, performance, future of LL, partnerships, policy etc. etc. etc.

Improved collaboration in SL is something I'd love to see, but I'm unsure about this.

The partnership has been known for sometimes and has been posted in many public websites. Only LL and the RiverRunRed hadn't admitted it back then. But I believe most of the related companies would have known it for long now.

Yes i know RRR has been doing lots of stuff in SL, but a business partnership with LL is an entirely different matter. I am critical because it has always been LL policy not to partner with content creators for profit (see my links re: policy above), but rather provide the platform with them, and treat them like they would any other citizen, for better or worse. A business partnership for profit is a new thing for LL. Now, there has been plenty of partnerships for research yes, IBM, google maybe. RRR partnership is because they are trying to sell a product, this is very different from the old LL.

But I think it is for the good anyway, profit or not. If more people use it, especially the big businesses, virtual worlds that emerge later will lean more toward SL standard and increase the survival chance of SL itself.

... or it just puts the smaller content creators/builders out of business. After all, this is really no more than a cookie cutter geocities homepage equivalent in SL, is it? If everything looks the same, apart from a logo or two, then surely there's little to no opportunity for the 'little guys' to pick up building jobs, many of whom are working at a fraction of a cost to the big companies already, and can provide just as good a finished product, but perhaps not as fast.

The video almost puts down the 3d environment of SL. All the work is happening in 2d, and the avatars stand around like shop dummies while the inset talking heads, well, talk...

It's really not compelling at all, even for me... and I know what you really CAN do inside SL.

It's probably more compelling than remote conference where you only see the face of who you're talking to, I think? Especially if you can host them in your own server and not on linden lab's.

As presented in that video, no.
If you can host it on your own server, I want that product without RRR in the way. But the way it was described, I don't see that they're actually doing that... it need be nothing more than a VPN connection to Linden Labs.

That's the impression I got.
If the RRR content was in the environment on a prim, I'd be impressed. The film showed how RRR's environment was of use in a virtual meeting, but not how SL helped.
Without further integration, this is useless.

I'm not saying it's useless, I'm just pointing out that the video doesn't indicate that RRR has any idea of how it might be useFUL. Sun's "Project Wonderland" videos are much better, and Wonderland is more like a web client than a world.