IBM gets involved with Second Life with a new project, still in its testing phase, that will enable IBM employees to move around IBM’s private area in Second Life and use the virtual space for interactions, rehearsals, teleconferences and secure communications, the company unveiled before the Virtual Worlds Conference 2008 taking place this week.

Linden Lab offers companies such as IBM the possibility to use the virtual space for internal activities among the members of the company, at secure levels. The collaboration initially started in 2007, when IBM announced the virtual IBM Business Center that offered a place for employees, clients and partners to meet and do business.

“We see many possible applications for this technology that lets you practice, play out different scenarios and gain insight quickly – an ideal environment for learning in a range if jobs,” said Jim Spohrer, Director of Service Research at IBM Almaden Research Center, according to CNN Money. “Learning in a virtual world helps us move the participants to front and center stage while still receiving valuable backstage coaching.”

IBM employees will benefit from fast communications, online meetings and collaborations by simply using their avatars in the IBM virtual area: “We share a vision that virtual world technologies and collaboration represent the future of business communication,” Ginsu Yoon, Vice President of Business Affairs at Linden Lab, said to the San Francisco Chronicle. “Deploying regions of the Second Life Grid behind IBM’s firewall is a major milestone in the evolution of the Internet and will help accelerate the growth and adoption of all virtual worlds.”

Using virtual worlds to re-create real life environments and developing a learning process on that account is becoming more of a tendency these days, and virtual world become more than just a place for regular people, they become a place for corporations to train and prepare their personnel, conduct businesses and communicate at a fast and safe rate.