Given the softness of the tech sector and constriction in IT spending, the NetWorld+Interop show last week in Las Vegas was bound to be an interesting bellwether. What would we find? A few crusty vendors shouting about yesterday's news as they try to avoid having their products classified commodities, or a vibrant but smaller crowd pushing the envelope?

It was decidedly the latter.

The show was smaller than recent years. Fewer vendors, smaller booths, fewer attendees. But it is, plain and simply, a tough time for high-tech trade shows, what with the industry slump, drop in IT spending, fear of terrorism and now the threat of SARS further curtailing travel.

Whereas in years past vendor exhibits filled two halls, this year Interop didn't even take up a full room (screens were used to choke down the space). Officially, Key3Media says the show had half the exhibit space of last year, which was itself half the size of the year before.

That said, the show was vibrant. While the industry might be in a slump, technology is not moribund. The hottest topics included wireless, security and convergence.

The show floor had special zones for wireless (which featured 18 companies and a Wi-Fi pavilion); security (30 companies and a Secure Sockets Layer VPN hot spot); and storage, with nine companies. Start-up City, an Interop staple, attracted 12 newcomers. Most zones seemed to attract healthy crowds.

While not scientific, a spot check of vendors found them happy with the event. HP executives said the people coming to their booth were high-quality buyers, and many were staying for 30 minutes or longer.

Besides HP, companies with larger booths included: 3Com, Adtran, APC, Avocent, Cisco, Computer Associates, Enterasys Networks, Extreme Networks, F5 Networks, Fluke Networks, Foundry Networks, Ixia, Microsoft, NetScreen Technologies, Nortel, Opnet, Polycom, Sprint and Symbol Technologies. Even Trapeze Networks, one of the new wireless LAN switch players, had a prominent booth.

Notably absent vendors included AT&T, Check Point, IBM, Network Associates, Novell and Symantec.

Will Interop survive? If this show is any indication, the answer would be yes. But it doesn't mean Key3Media shouldn't be examining options. A member of the Network World Global Test Alliance suggested it might be time to revisit the show's roots: Move it back to San Jose and curtail some of the marketing yap. If nothing else, this would put it closer to big businesses and attract high-tech day visitors.