Sunbelt Software (they keep the bad guys out)

Sunbelt Software (they keep the bad guys out). Cast your eyes down the list of companies in Second Life and one thing’s for sure – you’ve heard of almost all of them. Entrance into SL to date has been predominantly led by progressive marketers working for global brands. These Tier One organisations are companies that have the budgets to explore SL and learn as they go along.

A new trend is now emerging.

Tier Two organisations – companies that are well known in their respective categories but not neccessarily known globally outside of their sectors are starting to examine the benefits of virtual world marketing. Interestingly, in many cases, these types of companies actually have more reasons and more business model benefits for integrating metaverses into their operations. For some, there are brand new revenue streams and communication benefits.

Autodesk is a great example of this new opportunity with their developer outreach strategy. Another is Sunbelt Software an anti-spyware and anti-virus solution provider. Sunbelt is benefiting from the awareness of being in SL but also integrating some of their real-world products on a virtual basis. Virtual product demonstrations if you will.

Using virtual platforms to demonstrate and/or visualise software applications will be a key growth area in SL because platforms such as Second Life offer something that websites do not – the ability to examine and interact with software tools in a shared collaborative environment.

Sunbelt Island is split into different areas. There’s the main office building based on their real world headquarters. Inside here there’s information about the company as well as a ‘Avatar Radar’ tool – a nifty real-time application that tracks the proximity of other residents. Also available, making another virtual reference to their real-world products is a in-world security door that allows residents to manage access to their virtual properties – keeping the bad guys out.

Other features on the island include a developer area and an events area. This approach is more intelligent than some of the islands and initiatives currently in SL and expect more software and ICT companies to integrate real-world applications into virtual worlds in the near future.

Here’s the story about Sunbelt and Second Life from their website and here’s the SLurl.