Lenovo

Overheard - Move over Second Life. Web Alive has come to town.

Lenovo unveiled a virtual world called eLounge, which is powered by Nortel’s recently announced virtual world platform, web.alive. Lenovo appears to be using this venue as a social and interactive platform for providing information on their products and services — notably, their laptops. Dennis Shiao, Review: Lenovo’s eLounge Virtual World

When I woke up this morning, I felt like I’d been out late to a party at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. (Unfortunately, I was still in upstate New York surrounded by snow.)

You see, last night I went to virtual trade show hosted by Lenovo. They are using a platform called web.alive. It’s Web-based and like nothing else I’ve experienced in browser-based virtual world software. I actually felt as if I had been at the conference, meeting people, looking at laptops and Lenovo’s new netbook. The only thing that was missing from the conference experience were the free pens and the chance to enter a raffle.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Second Life. I’ve probably installed it and uninstalled it at least five times over the past year. I’ve been to virtual events at Cisco and IBM. Second Life for business is interesting, but nowhere as exciting as what I experienced last night at Lenovo’s virtual store.

There’s something different about web.alive’ platform.  For one thing the navigation is intuitive and it only takes a first-time visitor a few minutes to figure out how to get around. You don’t see avatars standing around with their heads down and arms out — wiggling their fingers as they type on some invisible keyboard.  That’s what happens when you visit a business site in Second Life — everyone looks like zombies.

At Lenovo’s eLounge, however, you see energetic people walking around with their heads up. You can talk to the software developers, you can talk to the Lenovo sales representatives or you can talk to other people who’ve wandered in and are marveling at the experience of being in this rather wonderful virtual world. And if you’re not all that social?  You can just wander around and eavesdrop. The experience feels real.

I’ve been to other virtual trade shows on line. They’re interesting, but they’re flat.  Literally flat, clickable images. And the experience is flat.  Here’s a tour of AMD’s virtual trade show last year, for example. It’s nice, but it’s so…last year.

The architects at web.alive are on to something big. And they’re marketing it to the right audience — business people whose budgets are tight — who need to collaborate — who want to stay on the cutting edge.

If you have a few minutes today I strongly suggest you stop by Lenovo’s virtual store.  You’ll view the virtual environment as a Web page after you download and install a small browser plug-in.

I think you’ll be surprised, not only by the high quality graphics and the amazing audio, but by the real feeling of community you’ll experience.

Overheard - Road to Riches

“To tempt farmers in China into high-tech territory, Lenovo executives explain, they have tried to make their machine easy to use, cheap, and robust. But its key feature, they say, is its software, dubbed “Road to Riches,” that helps peasants search for agricultural information that will boost business.” Peter Ford, Christian Science Monitor

ThinkPad? Think Lenovo.

Also think China. And software called Road to Riches. What a name!

Todd Crowell writes, “Lenovo has been working steadily to become China’s first global brand. Two years ago, it changed its name from Legend to Lenovo (an invented word from Latin novo, meaning new) specifically because Legend was too common and already trademarked in the West.

In acquiring the IBM computer division, Lenovo gained the ThinkPad laptop and the ThinkCenter desktop, two of the best-known brands in the computer industry. Lenovo’s strategy is to link its name with the better-known products, until they become synonymous in the customer’s mind.

“There will be no doubt that ThinkPad is made by Lenovo, just like iPod is made by Apple,” says Deepka Advani, Lenovo’s senior vice president and director of marketing. The products will be produced under the IBM logo for five years. As the Lenovo brand becomes better known, the company will eventually drop the IBM logo and sell them as Lenovo brand ThinkPads and ThinkCenters.