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PlayStation Home goes up corporate ladder: hosts virtual meetings, Microsoft joins in

Posted Jan 2, 2009 at 6:36AM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: PS3, Xbox 360 Tags: Aaron Greenberg, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Playstation Home, Webcam

PlayStation Home - Image 1

So you're tired of webcam conferences, eh? PlayStation Home is still in open beta, and already, it's changing the landscape of how people communicate with each other. Some of you have done this casually over Home, I'm sure - meeting up with your friends in the virtual world and whatnot. But did you ever imagine using Home as a place to have a virtual corporate meeting?

This new direction of virtual meetings is being spearheaded by none other than Ernst & Young, one of the biggest firms handling professional services for over a hundred companies across the globe. Among the companies already taking part in the project are Merrill Lynch and, yes, Microsoft.

(Oooh, Aaron Greenberg might have something to say about that...)

The entire project involves some of their companies testing out how viable it is to have a meeting in Home. The goal here is to see if having virtual meetings in Home is cost-effective: no need for huge office spaces, travel costs, heck, they may even help the environment (no travel = less carbon emissions).

Andrew Mawson of Advanced Workplace Associates (they're the guys commissioning the project) comments:

Increasingly we are living in a world without borders where workers need to collaborate on a global scale. Audio and video-conferencing solutions have emerged but the use of virtual worlds may offer the next evolution in overcoming the tyranny of distance - a more realistic and learning-enhanced environment.

Oh can you just imagine? Sealing a multimillion dollar deal with an online associate and having an epic dance-off while you're at it! Gives an entirely new definition to "working at Home," doesn't it?

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He's part of Microsoft's Xbox 360 product manager (kinda like how John Koller is Sony's product manager for the PSP). Here's part of the full quote:

"What Home to me feels like is Second Life for hardcore gamers. It doesn%u2019t feel like it broadens the experience and invites people in. When they unveiled it, it seemed innovative. I think what's happened is now here we are a couple of years later and we feel beyond that.

"It feels like 2005 tech in 2008. I'm not sure that%u2019s what people want."

Ironic, huh? But then again, this is just one guy, and he doesn't represent the whole of Microsoft. Still though... it's ironic.

http://ps3.qj.net/Microsoft-Home-feels-like-2005-tech/pg/49/aid/127226

# um duh... — rollypoly 2009-01-02 11:21

this has been happening in second life for ages...

so yes anyone doing this with Home is way way behind...

"some of their companies", most likely not microsoft...

someone is reaching for reasons to call home anything but a failure... remember it was heralded as sony's answer to LIVE...

# WTF!?!?!?!?! — ISOHaven 2009-01-02 12:13

I'm all for the PS3 but this news doesn't make sense. There have been alternatives like it (except for 3D avatars) for a LONG LONG time.

Adding 3D people doesn't add:

1. Any productivity.

2. Any ROI for implementing a whole new system.

This simply doesn't make sense. What's next? "Hey everyone! Check out this cube I found with a different color on each side. It's so kewl! You mix up the cube and try to get each side back to it's original color!!!"

Case in point:

"The goal here is to see if having virtual meetings in Home is cost-effective: no need for huge office spaces, travel costs, heck, they may even help the environment (no travel = less carbon emissions)."

Yeah, that goal was realized over 8 years ago! I implemented my first ISDN video conferencing unit back then. Now it's even easier and cheaper!

# re: — Ron Overdrive 2009-01-02 12:32

Problem is that requires them to purchase a $400 system and a HDMI compatible monitor or HDTV. That's like an easy $700 right there. Its more cost effective to get Second Life for FREE and just rent a cheap peace of property or run an OpenSIM private simulator inside a VMWare machine for FREE on a modern PC or Mac.

# Privacy — sesa 2009-01-02 13:55

I wonder how many company's secret got leaked in Home

# WTF!?!?!?!?! — ISOHaven 2009-01-02 13:56

"Problem is that requires them..."

"That" what? The PS3? Or the video conferencing I mentioned? You don't need an HDTV for any of it.

There are plenty of software solutions, free and not free. However you forgot the cost of a PC in your example.

# um — rollypoly 2009-01-02 15:03

i think most businesses own a (probably more) pc already... but not a ps3.

even your post assumes as much...

you were doing pretty good until that last idiotic remark... shame, i thought you might be growing up.

# try again — Jookycola 2009-01-02 15:25

um, duh

The New Xbox experience live is a rip off of home i hate to tell you. Home has been in development far longer than MS's cheap rip off.

# Home is made for spying — saldude2 2009-01-02 15:44

Carefull microsoft, sony might be spying on u

# Who cares? — DannyDanger 2009-01-02 15:55

How does this make home anymore exciting, I'm bored!!

# re: ISOHaven — Ron Overdrive 2009-01-02 17:34

You almost sounded inelegant there kid. Almost. That last sentence was you shooting yourself in the foot. 99.9999% of offices already have computers, many of which can easily run Second Life or similar software. Home, no matter how you look at it, requires the purchase of additional hardware that has no purpose in the non-gaming industry work space.

# ... — Binary 2009-01-02 17:51

what did microsoft rip off of home?

avatars? n**ga please!

# Crap — NakedFaerie 2009-01-02 22:36

I told $ony that Home will fail if released in the state it was in. I can see someone begging to keep it alive.

When it went open beta it was full of people, now 3 weeks later its full of creeps and its nearly empty.

I see it failing very soon unless $ony put everything into it very soon and make it a place people want to come to, not to the 4 empty rooms as it is now.

Oh, and make all the stuff free as its a beta and not worthy of a pricetag yet.

Oh, yea. Second Life has been around for over 10 years and a lot better than Home is. Also 99% of businesses have a PC so SL is the number 1 choice if they want a virtual world to meet in.

# ... — TouchDaSkeleton 2009-01-03 01:12

stop writing wtf?!?!? in the title you *****ing idiot it pisses me off stop *****ing writing it already i *****ing hate it it sucks and it makes me *****ing sick stop mother*****ing mother ***** ***** writing wtf?!?! i dont even read what you say cause wtf?!?! your a *****ing idiot

# ! — Matt-N 2009-01-03 02:52

In reality, ISOHaven has a point.

Most (sensible) businesses buy PCs for a particular reason, and as such, they are probably busy in some other task.

You're making out as if businesses have a store cupboard with PC after PC sitting on the shelves, waiting to be unboxed.

Also, I really don't think it's realistic that a CEO or shareholders are gonna clamber under a desk, disconnect and unplug a PC, relocate it to a board meeting room, then connect it all up again, every time they want a meeting. They probably wouldn't want to pull someone away from their post to relocate it for them either.

Sure, a lot of board meeting rooms will have PCs, but that eliminates the "99.9999%" of them... by quite a lot, I should think.

So I think simply considering the price of a dedicated PC for video conferencing, is a good point.

# ! — Matt-N 2009-01-03 03:53

Maybe Sony will listen and take your advice next time.

You may even get a credit!!!

# Re: Matt-N — Ron Overdrive 2009-01-03 04:58

No, the concept of using a virtual world for board room meetings is to partially if not completely eliminate the board room. You don't need to disconnect anything, you don't even need to get up from your desk/cubical. You just run the program on your desktop and join in the meeting. The same thing can be done with video conferencing all the user would need is a webcam and software like Google's GTalk or Skype. What I'm making out is not that companies have extra pc's laying around, but that user computers in companies are GENERAL PURPOSE machines. No company in their right mind will have every user's machine dedicated to doing only one process. Its an inefficient use of resources. Servers are really the only machines that should have some sort of dedication. And especially in this economy, you can't afford to be wasting resources.

# re: NakedFaerie — Ron Overdrive 2009-01-03 05:03

Um... Second Life has only been around since 2003/4. It's only the beginning of 2009. Not to rag on ya, but don't go overboard to the point of mis-information.

# xbl/psn- dylantalon — dylantalon 2009-01-03 06:09

a lot of people fail to understand that home is just a social networking space where you socialize with others and thats all it is about. if a person want to shoot people and drive cars fast and crash, they can go and play a video game, home is not meant to be a game. a lot of people might say that they dont understand home or that it is pointless well, when you check their buddylist, most people on there are strangers so their point is hypocritical and silly.

home is doing what its meant to be, a place to social and relax out of the realm of video gaming. i love home and i also have a xbox 360, people should be more vocal about paying for a laggy online service or paying for online for that matter. and people should be talking more about rubbish consoles that breaks 33% of the time or give disc read error problems a lot.

xbl/psn - dylantalon

# @ Ron Overdrive — Matt-N 2009-01-03 07:33

You've completely taken what I typed into a different direction. I didn't even imply that a PC would be used for only ONE process, so not sure why you bothered to type that.

But now you mention it: As for ISOHaven making stupid comments; in your resourceful world (where it's always sunny and everyone smiles all the time), the PC in question will be even more bogged down with tasks... even more of a reason not to host a board meeting on it then!!! The last company I worked for had a lot of managers who didn't have their own PC or workspaces.

Also, you've conveniently ignored the moving of a PC to somewhere private if need be - and in my experience, most board meetings are somewhat private.

And no, the concept is to put groups of people all over the globe into one virtual board meeting room, easily, quickly and without the travel expenses (as the article itself suggests), not to eliminate the board meeting rooms altogether. I'm sure that will be a by-product in some instances, but not the mainstream - and certainly not the purpose of their existence.

Imagine sitting there designing (or whatever you do) on a PC or Mac, and the mangers are huddled around another PC right next to you having a 'crisis meeting' with the Japanese division, because "it's only the email PC, we'll use that one" lol. Yeah right mate!!!

I don't give a ***** about board meeting rooms, whether physical or virtual - it's really not the sort of thing that I get all excited and passionate about. My ONLY point was (and still is) that you shot ISOHaven down for suggesting that there will/may (whatever) be a cost of a PC, "kid".

Anyway, who's to say he meant monetary cost? He may have meant the impracticable cost of stretching a given PC's resources further. He probably didn't, but yet another reason why you shouldn't claim someone to be almost intelligent... almost!

I haven't got enough time to have a "yeah, but what if..." debate, because we could mould this conversation into our own valid point with every reply. Like I said, the CONSIDERATION of purchasing a new PC is a realistic one, and not to be sneered at, like some naughty child!!!

That was it... that was my only point!!!

# ! — Matt-N 2009-01-03 07:49

Amen to that.

# SL lifespan — NakedFaerie 2009-01-03 22:57

Well I cant remember what it was called but I was on one of them back in 1999/2000 as it was before I went overseas on 2000. I thought it was second life but it might've been called something back then.

I think it was the one SL was based on. Back at the start of SL there were about 4 or 5 of them and it looks like SL won.

# consoles — NakedFaerie 2009-01-03 23:08

I agree. I have all the consoles and I think the PS3 is the best even that the 360 is cheaper but crashes more and the wii is good but crap graphics and the controller sucks.

Well back to topic, Home what I thought was a place to hang out, and start games which is what was advertised. So far Home is a few empty rooms and thats it. its really pathetic. If someone thinks companies are going to have meetings there then they are thinking with thier little heads (the one in thier pants) as there is no way any company will do that. 1st is all the companies will have to buy PS3s then make the clubs etc that goes with the meeting. Instead of that they can just download SL and start it all in 5 mins.

There is no way Home will become a place for companies to have meetings. This is just a joke from $ony I think.

# WTF!?!?!?!?! — ISOHaven 2009-01-05 06:15

Matt already beat me to it. In addition to:

I have over 300 PCs at my disposal yet I can use NONE OF THEM for video conferencing. How the hell do you expect me to TAKE a machine away from an employee whenever someone feels like using it for video conferencing? Sure, they can do point to point at their desk but that doesn't help for LARGE MEETINGS which this article is addressing.

Seriously folks. Use your BRAINS!

It's obvious that Ron's real world experience consists of very little. He seems to think everyone can just conference at their individual desks. That might work for a VERY SMALL percentage however conferencing is usually a very small part of what is going on outside of the ACTUAL MEETING at hand. Which usually consists of some form of material or physical object being looked over at the meeting which requires ATTENDANCE. Otherwise, everyone would just use text messaging.

# WTF!?!?!?!?! — ISOHaven 2009-01-05 06:16

@TouchDaSkeleto n

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! !!!!

WTF!?!?!?!?!

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