Economy, industry consolidation take toll on Interop

The recent Interop Las Vegas had its bright spots: cloud computing generated genuine buzz; HP flexed its growing muscles; and dozens of innovative products were rolled out.  However, there was no escaping the fact that the dour economy and significant market consolidation have taken their toll on the network industry and its biggest general trade show.

Interop officials were still tabulating attendance numbers at press time, but some estimates put the total at 15,000, about 25% less than the previous year. Or put another way, about half that of the International Council of Shopping Centers show, which took place in Vegas the same week.

Beyond the attendance figures, though, one of the most striking changes was Cisco's modest physical presence at the event. Its booth size was a fraction of what it has been in past years, and what it did have was mainly to highlight its partners' wares. Cisco had one executive on a keynote panel, but otherwise gave way to leaders from HP, F5 Networks and Skype (Cisco CEO John Chambers last spoke there in 2007).

As one attendee put it: "You can't put on a networking conference without Cisco."

There was talk that the company would not have come at all were it not afforded free exhibition space, though an Interop spokeswoman assured us that Cisco "ranked in the top tier of sponsor investment/spend in the event" and even produced a custom Web site for the event. Some took Cisco's relatively low-key approach to the show as a sign of the company's utter dominance in Ethernet switching and IP routing.

"Interop needs Cisco more than Cisco needs Interop," says Zeus Kerravala, a Yankee Group analyst. "Cisco's been trying to make [its own Cisco Live!] Networkers the premier networking show.

"What Interop has to hope for — and really where a lot of the focus of the keynotes should be — is how to promote the F5s, and 3Coms and HPs and companies like that, and establish them as real competitors to Cisco," he added. "That will make Cisco have to come back to Interop."

Indeed, companies — from Brocade to HP to 3Com to Juniper — are taking aim at Cisco as it attempts to gain greater control of data centers with a blend of network, storage and server offerings, and many of those companies did make noise at Interop. Whether they will give Cisco a real fight remains to be seen.

While HP disappointed Wall Street with its most recent financial results and CEO Mark Hurd was less than optimistic about IT spending for the rest of the year, Interop was HP's turn to shine.

The company boasted a massive booth just inside the entrance to the trade show floor that included a life-size Halo virtual conferencing room. It also joined Microsoft (a modest exhibitor at Interop) in announcing a four-year agreement to invest as much as $180 million in building a complete corporate infrastructure for unified communications and collaboration. What's more, HP Senior Vice President Marius Haas delivered the opening keynote address and put the industry on notice that it was claiming the "clear alternative to Cisco" title.