Since 5000 of IBM's employees hold meetings in virtual world Second Life, it should come as no surprise that one of IBM's top execs focused on virtual worlds believes there is a lot of potential for meetings and training in virtual worlds. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a dead ringer for NBA commissioner David Stern, said, "Meetings and training could be the killer app of virtual worlds."

The IBM vp also gave listeners at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit a better idea of why IBM is spending so much time thinking about virtual worlds. "Don’t underestimate any technologies that allow us to do things in a more human way and more effectively. That's a huge thing." He added that virtual worlds will increase the pervasiveness of IT, which in the end, will benefit IBM in the same way that the growth of the web has benefited the computing giant over the past decade.

For more on the AlwaysOn conference, see:
Wired
Dave Winer

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