Some of Multiverse's biggest buzz-generating projects so far have been entertainment-oriented, from a broad collaboration with James Cameron to serving as the platform for an upcoming Firefly MMO. Today Multiverse announced a more serious turn towards enterprise-level applications and support for virtual worlds. Ranging from the ability to host a Multiverse world behind a secure firewall to an array of integrated VoIP services, Multiverse hopes to build off existing Web-based services. "The other especially interesting functionalities are the abilities to do real-time PowerPoint presentations and real-time collaborative whiteboarding," Executive Producer and Co-Founder Corey Bridges told Virtual Worlds News. "It’s not like we’ve built a special widget for each of those. What we’ve done instead is not in building those widgets, but in building the underlying platform that lets developers take advantage of the rest of the Web where people have already solved those problems. With Multiverse, you can show a web page on any surface and make it interactive."
That doesn't mean users have to hunt for those services themselves, though.
"We’re going to make it even easier," explained Bridges. "We’re going to put in a tiny amount of functionality that makes it easier for you an enterprise user to click a button and have that PowerPoint uploaded and converted to HTML and looking the same to everyone in the virtual world. It’s tiny, incremental work for us to build these things because we’ve spent years developing a platform not to replace the Web but to leverage all the content that’s been made to make the Web interesting."
Along those lines, users can integrate work from Google Docs; stream video that's cached on a hard drive, stored on a network, or found on the Internet; and work with tools like AI and VoIP that have made collaboration in games easier.
"We’ll also be showing off free VoIP," said Bridges. "We built that into the server. We offer two kinds: channel-based VoiP that’s like a team speak or conference call, all at the same level, and also positional sound. If your avatar is standing net to someone you hear them more. That’s built into the Multiverse platform."
No partners have been announced yet, but Multiverse hopes to announce several in Q2 of this year and present case studies. The worlds themselves, though, will remain private. As for pricing, Multiverse traditionally doesn't charge users to develop on its platform, only drawing a portion of the revenue when the developers themselves begin charging.
"That works fine for worlds with a revenue model and those that are out on the Internet at large," Bridges said. "For a company that wants to deploy a world behind a firewall, that’s a different licensing model. It’s a named user model, and very much in line with current prices."
The interest is already there, though, representing a shift in the way large companies view virtual worlds.
"There’s been a bunch of interest, particularly in the last quarter or two," said Bridges. "Since the start of the new year, there’s been huge interest from the enterprise. It’s much more sober and reflective and thinking entrance to the virtual world than the last few years. I think we’re seeing a nice, mature approach to this that takes into account they hype we’ve seen in virtual worlds. That’s really gratifying."
Multiverse will be showing off its new enterprise offerings at Virtual Worlds 2008, this week in New York City, Booth 52.
When asked about the price for corporate consumers, Bridges said "For a company that wants to deploy a world behind a firewall, that’s a different licensing model. It’s a named user model, and very much in line with current prices."
Um... OK?
It's a named user model! That's a good thing, because I would certainly hate to purchase a model that had no name.
But how much does it cost? Multiverse doesn't post the prices anywhere on its web site. This suggests that the answer is "It costs much as we think we can get away with charging you."
At least it's a named user model! Whew. That's a relief!
Posted by: Ashen Optima | April 01, 2008 at 08:40 AM