The opportunistic consultants, who've persuaded blue-chip corporations such as IBM to establish a presence in Second Life, will tell you that the virtual world isn't just for furries, ageplay perverts and prank-loving adolescents. Linden Lab's online enviroment is the business communications platform of the future. Which makes it particularly unfortunate that 90% of corporate IT professionals want to ban access from the workplace to the bandwidth-intensive and time-wasting service. Which seems very sensible, except it might give employees the idea that Second Life is actually compelling.

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