Development and Consulting Services

Once the client and server software is readily and freely available for creating virtual worlds, innovative system admins will begin downloading and installing it. It is free, after all, and impressive. As that happens, a lot of companies will find themselves in a "all dressed up and no place to go" situation. I have actually seen this happen several times. Somebody downloads and installs the open source version and nobody else will have anything to with it. The problem (certainly not the only one) is that people cannot see the potential. The learning curve is huge and the payback is not obvious. Nonetheless, some companies will invest the time and effort to experiment with the software.

But only the most dedicate will persevere on their own. Most will need some help and that is where the development and consulting services come in. The first step in building a relationship would be to send out a small team of imaginative application specialists to discuss the possibilities of using virtual worlds for business applications. This should be relatively inexpensive as you cannot expect someone to commit a large amount of money until they know what they may get for it in return. This team will discuss the possibilities with the companies management and see if there are any opportunities. Most likely there will be as virtual worlds have a great deal of potential.

Once the application team has identified the most promising area for a business application, the consulting team is sent in. The consulting team proceeds to identify the requirement for the application being built. There is potential here to develop a proprietary methodology for gathering the requirements of a virtual world application. When the requirement phases is done, the company will have a spec for a business application.

The company then can take the spec and attempt to develop it themselves, or they can purchase further services in the form of development services. Either way this turns out as a win for LL. If the company decides to have LL develop the application, then they provide development services, for a fee, of course. If the company decides to develop it on their own, then there will be yet another virtual world application and the their development team will be in need of training and documentation. Training and documentation is yet another busienss opportunity that I will turn to next.