ProtonMedia Upgrades ProtoSphere, the Leading Virtual World for Business

LANSDALE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today ProtonMedia released ProtoSphere v.1.4, a milestone update of the company’s market-leading 3-D virtual world for business. The new release boasts the seven major features most requested by global life sciences companies to meet their most demanding meeting, collaboration, and learning requirements.

“And notably, they never mention ProtoSphere among those environments. And they never will. Once again, ProtonMedia is setting the pace by defining the standard for virtual worlds in the enterprise.”

“There’s a reason why ProtoSphere is now the #1 virtual world in life sciences, and the best-selling 3-D collaboration platform in the industry,” says Ron Burns, founder and CEO of ProtonMedia. “We listen to our customers, not trends. We’re delivering the next-generation teaming and learning capabilities that global businesses want. We’re forged by the real business needs of life science executives and scientists, not consumers, gamers, or e-commerce providers. If you want to bring your best talent with their collective knowledge together to make an optimal business decision, then talk to us.”

This latest version of ProtoSphere provides a visually stunning virtual space and an arsenal of tools that globally dispersed teams need to collaborate online, including life-like avatars with gestures and emotions, programmable training bots and guides, document and application sharing, VoIP conferencing, real-time text chat, presence awareness, video streaming, blogs, wikis, feeds, role-playing simulations, content workflow, compliance features, and enterprise social networking. New features include:

1.		Presentation Boards that make it easy for users to put single images or Microsoft PowerPoint presentations with multiple slides onto any surface. This includes whiteboards, easels, screens, or even walls. With the PowerPoint API, users can apply content to Presentation Boards in real-time as a meeting is unfolding, or load content in advance. Unlike other collaboration tools, such as Cisco’s WebEx, ProtoSphere’s Presentation Boards are ideal for team/war room settings where content must remain persistent, and where multiple streams of sharing are needed for complex problem solving and brainstorming. With full support for user and group permissions, they also allow for posting public or private agendas, announcements, note taking, navigation signage, branding, and personalization throughout a ProtoSphere 3-D world.

2.		Private VoIP Zones that make communicating inside busy rooms or other areas as natural and lifelike as it is in the real world. Users can step aside to enjoy private one-on-one “sidebar” conversations or “breakouts” at the same time other users are chatting or a conference is taking place nearby.

3.		The Large Presentation Auditorium provides a massive virtual meeting place where hundreds of attendees (up to 250) can take in a live presentation in a gorgeous trade-show like venue. For presenters, there’s a virtual green room where they can prepare, a podium and tools for presenting, and a virtual remote to control the display of PowerPoint slides or other presentation materials—including material from Microsoft SharePoint. Meanwhile, attendees get a front-row view of the stage, projection screen, and presenters, so they can see and hear the presentation with perfect clarity.

4.		Single-port firewall traversal minimizes security risks and speeds deployments by requiring only one port (the standard https port 443 by default) to be opened. IT leaders can optionally specify their choice of port.

5.		Microsoft Active Directory integration brings single sign-on access to ProtoSphere, making it easy for users to log on once to their Microsoft Windows Domain, and have access to all of their enterprise resources, including ProtoSphere. For IT leaders, ProtoSphere’s Active Directory saves time, because they don’t have to administer a proprietary database of user accounts, rights, roles, and other directory services information. ProtoSphere user profiles are automatically and transparently synchronized with the businesses Active Directory store.

6.		The optional SharePoint Media Carousel makes ProtoSphere a true team player in any SharePoint environment. Now users can easily browse and import SharePoint content into ProtoSphere for sharing, viewing, or collaboration. Access to the SharePoint Media Carousel is configurable via permissions, while content is subject to the standard SharePoint Access Control.

7.		Support for Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8, and Firefox 3 ensures that the ProtoSphere server and clients are fully compatible with the latest and greatest Windows operating system and browsers. Other compatibility improvements include a new 1024 x 590 display mode for netbook and small laptop displays, support for the standard Microsoft Installer (MSI) for mass, in the background, client installation, and Microsoft Code Signing Certificates for security of ProtoSphere executable code.

“Journalists, analysts, and business leaders alike consistently cite security issues, unproven metrics, and lack of integration with popular enterprise platforms as barriers preventing 3-D virtual worlds from achieving critical mass in the enterprise,” says Cheng T. Chen, CTO of ProtonMedia. “And notably, they never mention ProtoSphere among those environments. And they never will. Once again, ProtonMedia is setting the pace by defining the standard for virtual worlds in the enterprise.”

ProtoSphere’s Standard Environment Package provides 15 zones, including a Welcome Center, a Collaboration Center, six collaboration rooms, two meeting rooms, two classrooms, a trade show hall, a small auditorium, and a large auditorium. Every space supports Presentation Boards and Media Carousels. And every installation includes the Zone Capacity Control for managing attendance in any zone, and ensuring optimal performance due to load; and an Environment Admin Tool for account, zone, and permissions administration.

ProtoSphere v1.4 is available now via ProtonMedia direct sales and select systems integrator partners. Call 1-215-631-1401 for sales information. To download a free demo of ProtoSphere, please visit ProtonMedia’s Web site.

ABOUT PROTONMEDIA

ProtonMedia is the developer of ProtoSphere, the #1 virtual world in life sciences, and the most advanced 3-D virtual world for enterprise collaboration, meetings, and learning. Since 2006, ProtonMedia has been helping businesses overcome the limits of traditional online collaboration tools with engaging environments that improve the productivity and organizational effectiveness of globally distributed teams. ProtonMedia’s customers include some of the world’s most respected brands, including AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck Inc., BP, Chevron, Duke University, Deloitte, TIAA-CREF, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Cisco. For more information, visit www.ProtonMedia.com.