As I have been long predicting the virtual 3D marketplace for live collaboration technologies is gradually heating up. Last night an email notification in French announced the entry of a new third major player in this fascinating online collaboration sector. Arinfo Atlantique, a Nantes-based French company, has indeed just announced that it will publicly launch next week (through a series of online public demos) I-maginer, a new fully immersive, avatar-driven 3D collaboration and conferencing environment.

After smartMeeting and Tixeo Workspace 3D (another French company)this is the third significant entry into this new sector in the arc of just less than 6 months.

As I have been saying and writing for some time, online real estate, virtual secure shared spaces that have "persistence" over time is a very important part of what the future of online collaboration and cooperation will look like.

And it looks like that the long tradition of investments and smart research in computer graphics that France has been financing for over 25 years keeps bringing out excellent and highly innovative products in this and many other fields.

For now I can say very little that is specific to this new technology as there is yet no other way to try it out than signing up for their public demo next week. (Beware as these maybe in French, as the whole site right now).

I have signed up for two of these demos (so I can be sure I will have the opportunity to see and ask all of the questions I normally have) and will be reporting back after Wednesday next week.

Through the screenshots I have found on the I-maginer web site, you can get a good glimpse of the level of sophistication of these 3D virtual environments in which you can move (as an avatar) in real-time. Voice over IP is integrated and so are other core conferencing abilities as text chat and document and file sharing.

In a strategically effective move, the company behind I-maginer has already prepared a roll-out plan which includes diversification of this fascinating technology into three different key products:

• i-maginer WEB CONFERENCE


• i-maginer CLASSE VIRTUELLE (for -e-learning applications)


• i-maginer WEB SITES (I suspect for integration on Web sites / communities / no info yet available on-site

Initial pricing for I-maginer is way up on the expensive side, cutting out all possible potential from small and medium sized enterprises and from many of the pssible customers in the academic/educational world.

Here the daily rates for renting a virtual fully immersive 3D space:

- 5 participants :120 €
- 10 participants :200 €
- 15 participants :280 €
- 20 participants :320 €

On the basis of this little information I have for now, smartMeeting seems the one player best set in this niche sector to reap the benefits of not needing to dialogue only with large corporate customers. With prices starting at $20 day smartMeeting would appear to have a much longer tested and refined setup and a definite winner in its pricing model.

But I need to see what's under the hood of I-maginer and what are the differences that make them want to bet on such a pricing strategy before I can confirm these initial feelings.

More pricing information can be found here.

A free 1-day try-out is promoted for those who sign-up on the site but it is yet not available.

Public demos of I-maginer are also available on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Sign-up is right here.

N.B.: The Web site is still under construction and for now all content on the site is only in French.