Please keep off the grass

I don't quite understand why Linden Lab don't just build a new grid or continent for the corporations. Their latest grand plan aimed at enterprises is announced on the blog and can be read here. Now before we get into that, let's just take a look at how Linden Lab are elbowing the good honest residents who created the content in their platform, to quote Amanda"Enterprise" Linden:

"Business-Friendly Mainland

One other important thing to note: The Enterprise Team is not just working on SL Enterprise and the SL Work Marketplace. We’re also hard at work making improvements to the main Second Life environment—to make it easier to use and useful for organizations using Second Life today and for those that will be joining in the future. We’ll have more to share on some of those improvements in the coming months."

No, stop it, stop it right now. Please leave us alone. Take your corporate friends and wine and dine them on corporate land, you know, THE PLACE WE TOLD YOU TO BUILD INSTEAD OF THE ADULT CONTINENT. Linden Lab's attitude to their core users at this time is hostile. As we saw with the Openspace debacle, Linden Lab aren't afraid to bite the hand that feeds them. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind but Linden Lab really need to understand who their core users are because the people their courting won't put up with the crap their loyal residents do.

All of these Enterpise posts suggest that those of us who come here for some fun and relaxation are in the way, the pioneers aren't welcome anymore hey? This world was built long before I arrived, I admire and respect those who laid the foundations, I'm not so comfortable with seeing Corporate Harry undermining those foundations on a wild goose chase for people who don't want to be here.

However let's look a bit closer at this Enterpise solution they're proposing. First of all, Fifty five thousand dollars for a product that is officially described as beta does not have me running for the order form. There are very few details on support levels, server specs and exactly what functionality you're getting. 55K to have a virtual meeting? On top of this your own hosting costs, ok so you get some funky rack mounted servers, I'm still not seeing the attraction here.

Now let's get a little bit of perspective about the 55K price, it's not expensive in terms of other solutions. For example many Colleges and Universities will be paying that yearly in software licensing fees for something like the Microsoft Campus agreement. However you get far more than eight hundred seats for that and you get ongoing upgrades. There are also several things you can do with Microsoft solutions to enable a vast array of working practices.

Everything is very vague regarding this to someone who isn't familiar with Second Life, I really don't see the hook. I am not against such solutions, I simply don't see the attraction in paying 55K for this beta solution, what if people already have the hardware capabilities to run this solution? Where's the solution for them? What if people don't want voice? Where's the solution for them? What if people don't need eight regions? Where's the solution for them? This isn't the solution I envisaged at all.

Then we have: The SL Work Marketplace. A place where initially Gold Solution providers and later, recommended application providers, will be able to sell their services and wares to the enterprises. Now this will upset some people, but I don't have much of a beef with this. Business are not going to be comfortable purchasing from a no payment info on file avatar, this is the reality of the situation. What will be interesting to watch is how you get onto the recommended application provider list. If this ends up being a FIC list I'll be extremely disappointed.

Now I don't want people to think I'm just complaining, I have no objection to Linden Lab expanding their horizons but it should not be done at the expense of their core customers and this reeks of being done at the expense of their core customers.

So the question remains, why on earth did Linden Lab not build the corporate friendly grid or continent when we were telling them that was the best solution for the adult content issues? Why didn't they listen? The answer right now seems to be because they want to make mature and PG mainland corporate friendly, it's a stealth takeover and it stinks.