IBM has signed for non-exclusive rights to one of the top virtual reality authoring tools, which it will eventually sell into most of its markets. The tools are supplied by a UK firm, little known here in the US, but the UK is a hotbed of virtual reality technology rivalling US equivalents. The deal is with Superscape, one of three established heavyweight public companies in its native market. IBM will market Superscape’s virtual reality software for personal computers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the former Soviet Union. Deals for the Asia Pacific region and the Americas are still in negotiation. IBM sales staff will also sell related services including consultancy, virtual world building and training, and Superscape will provide the majority of these services. Superscape is seeking similar deals with other majors, and expects to announce a similar one in a few weeks. Superscape is now also distributing VisNet, a product for viewing and exploring the Internet in three dimensions, which will be free over theInternet starting next month. The software requires no special hardware such as head- mounted displays and is claimed to be the world’s fastest three- dimensional interactive viewer on standard iAPX-86 personal computers. It runs under Windows.
