A big theme at this year’s Interop conference in Las Vegas was cloud computing, the concept of turning physical data center assets and resources into a virtualized service infrastructure. But while cloud computing may be the silver lining around a dour IT economy, the clouds are gray and dreary around Interop, the networking industry’s biggest trade show.
Attendance was scant at this year’s conference due to the economy, lower travel budgets and the swine flu scare. Interop officials were still tabulating the final numbers of attendees and exhibitors at press time, but Interop General Manager Lenny Heymann did concede earlier that attendance dropped compared to last year’s show.
Indeed, traffic that appeared robust on Tuesday, the exhibit’s opening day, became a trickle overnight, noticeably lighter on Wednesday than the previous day. There were unofficial tallies of 15,000 or fewer attendees at this year’s conference – which would be down 25% from last year.
And Cisco, the preeminent networking company, had a meager presence – it’s booth size was a fraction of what it was in years past and mostly highlighted partner products. There was even talk that Cisco would not have been present at all were it not afforded free exhibition space.
Interop officials, however, said Cisco was not cajoled into exhibiting with free floor space.
“(I) assure you the booth was not free,” wrote Natalia Wodecki, Interop PR manager, in an e-mailed reply to Network World . “Both Cisco and its partners made significant investments in the show. Cisco ranked in the top tier of sponsor investment/spend in the event. Cisco put a lot of energy and resources into their presence, as is exemplified by the custom web site they produced for the event.”
Still, some see an opportunity for Interop to provide a stage for Cisco’s competitors while Cisco devotes its energy and resources to its own Cisco Live! Networkers conference.
“For a while, Interop was Cisco and whole bunch of smaller competitors,” says Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala. “Now the presence of companies other than Cisco is pretty big. 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 really establish themselves as real competitors to Cisco.”
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