Linden Lab to Back Away from the Enterprise and Focus on Consumer Use of Second Life

Linden Lab, creator of 3D virtual world Second Life, announced today a strategic restructuring to increase focus on the company's consumer business including investments intended to enhance ease of use and participation in its virtual goods marketplace through browser-based and mobile applications.

This is not a surprise to me as I have thought for some time their success in the enterprise as a business tool was going to be very slow in coming. With the exception of a handful of companies that have projects involving Second Life, the appetite for Second Life in business is pretty much nonexistent. I certainly don’t talk to every company out there but I talk to quite a few and I have never had anyone other than IBM talk favorably about what they are doing in Second Life.

I think Linden Lab is better off focusing on the consumer market and working on getting Second Life to work in a browser. Don’t get me wrong, I still think 3D immersive is a viable business tool and other companies that are more focused on business applications we have success in the business market. Digitell is doing some great work in events, meetings, training and one of my favorite applications, virtual museums. I hope to be able to write more about that in the next few weeks. VenueGen, although relatively new, is getting traction and will likely be successful in their meeting niche. According to Dan Parks, Virtualis is doing pretty well and even though he has built his convention center in Second Life, I think he’ll be well served by Second Life’s change of course. World to Worlds is also on Second Life with their new event and meeting facility and I think they will do well in the space also once they get the word out (we'll take a look at their new platform for you soon). There are some others I’m guardedly optimistic about, but until there is 3D internet (and there are some people who are getting closer to that technology), the 3D immersive companies need to develop a targeted solution and market focus.

Mark Kingdon, mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-latin"">Linden’s CEO said the realignment and subsequent 30% reduction in staff will help them stay focused on their two longer-term goals: creating a browser-based virtual world experience, eliminating the need to download software; and trying to extend the Second Life experience into popular social networks.