Sun Microsystems has multiple locations in Second Life. The general location for visitors interested in Sun Microsystems is the Pavilion. The first thing I did was take a guided tour of the island in hopes of learning a little about what they had to offer. The tour guide was this silver rocket chair that flew me around to various places on the island. It told me a lot about the history of the company and various features in the Pavilion parcel.

Sun opened their presence on SL in 2006, and they have the title of being the first Fortune 500 company to hold a conference on SL. From perspective of their guided tour, I found the Pavilion to be very well designed and visually appealing. The textures where detailed, and there weren’t really dull areas anywhere. Sun Microsystems doesn’t have any dedicated website for their SL presence, but there are many press releases on their main page.

In the center of the parcel there is a media center with a lot of seats and large video display screens. There was an information booth that told me Sun used this to display new products. Other Sun affiliated locations offer a tour of their new supercomputer which they showed at the 2007 conference in Reno, Nevada. Inside the visitor center there are also rooms for SL meetings and conferences. A recruitment center and press briefing lounge are located here as well.

Sun showcases their products in one of the building in the Pavilion. All of their servers are set up. You can actually open them up and see what they look like inside.

One thing that I really liked was a nifty little marketing ploy. Sun gives away free SL clothing that has the Sun Microsystems logo on it. The shirts are pretty cool, and it promotes their company as well.

I was a little disappointed in the amount of Sun employees on the site. During the time that I was touring the site I saw only one person there. The map revealed that there were only three people on the entire island. To improve their SL presence, Sun needs to get more people actively involved during the day to roam there island and talk to visitors. Without people there, Sun’s island appears very desolate and empty. I would only really recommend this island to a friend who is interested in buying products or services or looking for a job with Sun Microsystems.

IBM has a very similar island layout. Like Sun, IBM focuses on using SL as a communications and marketing platform. They have a plethora of confrence rooms and media centers, they even have a large theater. Unlike Sun, IBM seemed to have more employees on the island, and people specifically working there to help visitors out. They even had their own sandbox that had various projects under construction. Based on my tour of Sun Microsystem’s Pavilion, and a brief stint in IBM. It seemed to me that IBM had a better and more complex island.