Short piece up on ZDNet that peeks into IBM's corporate virtual world, Metaverse, and touches on the reasons they chose to build their own internal world rather than use Second Life -- as expected, confidentiality and security. The article also culled the company's three biggest lessons from using virtual worlds for business:

"Remember the users when building a virtual world. The goal is to enable collaboration, not make things complicated. Ackerbacker said IBM is still noodling over how to bring the emotional connection into virtual space and get employees there easily. “Can we create a learning environment that doesn’t get in the way?” asked Ackerbacker.

Cater to your culture. The avatar options in Metaverse–built on the Torque gaming engine–were distinctly IBM. For instance, ties are an option. So is gray hair is an option. And no one is some hybrid animal thingy.

Don’t be exclusive. If you want collaboration you have to make virtual worlds simple. Ackerbacker said IBM stripped down its user interface 'quite a bit.' 'We only have a dozen controls,' said Ackerbacker. 'Click on an icon and it’ll do something–fly, teleport and dress. We’re having an ongoing discussion on how to make it easier.'"

[IBM cooks up internal virtual world for confidentiality, security - ZDNet]