September 12, 2007
From the ‘Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better’ Dept.
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Not to be outdone by the well-reported substantial investment by IBM in Second Life (to the tune of circa US$100m), some highly-placed spies of mine in Microsoft have whispered in my ear that BillG will shortly be announcing something special.
Good manners precludes me from spilling the exact flavour of the beans, but let us put together some interesting questions and see if we can create a plausible outcome from the answers, shall we?
1. Why was Brad Kasell poached from IBM to Microsoft? Who is Brad Kasell? He was the brains behind the wonderful and wondrous Australian Open Second Life creation. Brad and his team pushed the Second Life technology to the limit to bring the tennis to the Second Life environment “live as it happens”.
2. Why has IBM spent so much money in Second Life? Well, as this post shows, it is to become ‘Masters of the Universe’ or, in the 3D Virtual World’s case, ‘Masters of the Metaverse’.
3. When has Microsoft ever allowed anyone to be the sole ‘Masters’ of anything for long? Sure, they made a huge tactical blunder by ignoring the www when it first popped up on everyone’s radar back in 1992-3, but once they realised they had stuffed up they wasted no time in taking Netscape right out of the picture by pouring all of their considerable brainpower and financial resources into their own browser, which they then gave away to all and sundry around the world via as many distribution channels as they possibly could.
‘Flood marketing’, you could call it, and they were very good at it. No newspaper, magazine or computer store didn’t have multiple copies of their Internet Explorer to give away to every subscriber, purchaser, visitor, person walking past the store.
Just as Netscape had created the trickle of interest in the internet, Microsoft created the channels for the flood that followed and that they were an instrumental part of.
4. Imagine if you were Microsoft — what would you do to stem the wave of positive publicity away from you and towards an environment that you are only really dabbling in? Having learnt harsh lessons from the past, you would probably want to master the new environment, wouldn’t you?
5. What if you had the technology and brainpower to be able to create your own 3D virtual world, focused around ‘business and leisure’ (but with ‘business’ as the primary driver, because it is ‘business’ that buys the software and pays the bills)?
6. To twist a popular catchphrase from the Second Life marketing material, Imagine A Business World Without Limits, indeed limited only by your imagination. Microsoft aren’t dumb; they listen to their sales channels, to their key customers and suppliers. What if those channels, customers and suppliers are asking for a kind of ‘Second Business Life’ where the environment is populated by real humans (no hiding behind silly names), where there are no vampires, furry rabbits or foxes, no strap-on sex implements, no samurai or horribly be-weaponed and angry machinery, just ‘real’ suits, casual dress, massive numbers of meeting rooms in a variety of locations: business park, office complex, golf resort, skyscrapers, underwater sanctuaries, ski resorts…
Now, far be it for me to cast aspersions and doubts in anyone’s minds, but if I were David Boloker, I would be kicking myself that one of my key ‘players’ was ’stolen’ from under my feet. I know that David is coming back to Australia towards the end of the year; I wonder if a hefty counter-offer to ‘come back’ will be slipped across to Brad’s Blackberry?
And I await with baited breath for a soon-to-be-scheduled announcement from BillG about an exciting new US$300m development from Microsoft.
Allegedly.
Stumble it!
Filed under: marketing
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