Virtual World News (VMN) reports that IBM has made a significant investment in Second Life in India, opening up a 24-hour business center to service clients in 12 languages. This follows its expansion last August of staffers from Australia, Singapore, and Malaysia.

The ‘live avatars’ will be IBM sales representatives that will aid with software sales, business questions, or finding a book from the business library. The staffers will speak Hindi/English and staff will be added from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Korea.

“There has been a huge surge in the popularity of the web activities like social networking. People are very accustomed to meeting each other on-line socially. We’ve just applied that concept to the business world,” said Paula Summa, General Manager of ibm.com, in August, as reported on the VWN site.

“Social networking and virtual world participation is skyrocketing in Asia. Asia is, after all, a hotbed for 3-D gaming. Why not 3-D business, too?” added Summa.

We should probably send this link over to our friends at Corante where one poster commented that:

“IBM thinks its a game… IBM isn’t there because they think SL is the shiznit, or Web 2.0 …they are their because their chipset dominates consoles, and to further establish IBM’s name with games. Shock, gasp, it’s a game.