3pointD.com

SAP, the German software giant, is about to open its doors officially in Second Life. Rather than going for an out-and-out island build, they have opted for a more conservative approach, opening a relatively small office on the Second Life developer island of »Silicon City«, owned by The V3 Group, who are sponsoring the ITE’07 event, that starts tomorrow (Friday, 20th April).

The work is largely that of company Second Life evangelist, Craigster Hax. He has taken the basic building provided by The V3 Group and kitted it out to provide both formal and informal meeting areas, and a presentation area. For those of a more adventurous persuasion, there is also skydiving, available on the roof. When I dropped by he was putting the finishing touches to the freebie dispenser (yes, I now have another company T-shirt!), but he found time to chat about the aims for this site. Initially, he wants to provide education and information for the SAP Developer Network, a global community of It professionals. “Many can’t make conferences and meetings and this could be the bridge for that. I [also] plan to start a movie a week here showing video blogs and things like that, then start to bring the folks in to have conversations. South America seems to be hot for VoIP but we’ve not got a large amount of conferences going on there, so this could be an alternative.”

He is cautious, using this first presence to gauge interest with both customers and partners before thinking of further expansion. While we were talking we were joined by a couple of community members. When asked, they confirmed that they would like to see “virtual TechEd… and knowledge sessions”, which fits with Craigster’s intentions for this first presence. However, if this pilot is successful, he may need to relocate to somewhat larger premises — their TechEd event is currently attended by 5,000 people! Even a fraction of this number would push the limits of a large sim cluster. Right now, though, SAP have a foothold in Second Life, and intend to stay.

SAP will also be participating in the ITE’07event, but at the time of going to press, Craigster was still awaiting confirmation that the formal opening of the office would be announced at the same time.

Aleister Kronos appears by kinde permission of Ambling in Second Life.