IBM to partner with Linden Labs

Now here's some important and very welcome news: today, IBM and Linden Labs announced a partnership. The two companies intend to work on some areas of key importance. Here's a very short list:

• avatar interoperability: take (some) properties of your avatar (e.g. assets, name, identity certificates and more) from one virtual world to another
  
• integration with existing business processes: existing business applications and data repositories should be able to interact with virtual worlds
  
• secure transactions - in and across worlds
  
• open standards for interoperability with the current world wide web
  

This partnership may, in time, prove to be a breakthrough, if IBM and Linden Labs succeed in getting other worlds and platforms on board as well. Let's hope they do.

But in the mean time, read the whole thing!

Update: read the official IBM Announcement as well.