Nortel's Web.Alive Debut with Lenovo at CES

I'm not a big CES follower, but you can't miss all the noise and news coming from the big players, especially Cisco's push into the home. It's all to be expected, and it sure will be interesting to see just how much uptake all this cool technology will have as the economy continues to decline. I had a long chat about this yesterday with a close friend in the U.S. financial sector, and it's pretty clear that we're shifting from an economy based on wants to one based on needs. It's painful, but I'm sort of glad it's happening. I'm not a fan of globalization, and in times like these we become more grounded out of necessity. I digress...

This is an awkward lead-in to my post, but that's how my mind is working right now. So, back to CES.

My post is about Nortel's announcement today for Web.Alive and how Lenovo is using it to help sell laptops. Web.Alive is a product of Nortel's Project Chainsaw initiative, which I was very privy to back in May. If using virtual worlds to facilitate commerce and collaboration is of interest, you may want to read my post about this, as well as their subsequent acquisition of DiamondWare in August - a move that I think really positions Nortel at the front of this exciting market opportunity.

These initiatives are ahead of what the market is ready for, but it's not hard to see the possibilities, especially as the quality of these virtual experiences gets to be so good and intuitive. Not being at CES, I'm not able to experience this first hand in the Lenovo "e-Lounge", but I will get my chance when the Nortel folks are back from CES. Look for a follow up post from me about this then.