Heard – and overheard – at last week’s Interop conference in Las Vegas …
Heard – and overheard – at last week’s Interop conference in Las Vegas:
John Chambers is no Bono, notwithstanding his being introduced as the network industry’s answer to the U2 frontman. (For one thing, it’s impossible to imagine Cisco’s CEO dropping an F-bomb on national TV.) But Chambers does possess a compelling stage presence, which was on full display as he preached the gospel according to Cisco during the show’s kickoff address.
“Everyone here wants to talk about technology,” Chambers said on one of his numerous forays out into the audience, which even included a rather risky leap off the stage. “But what will cause people to spend money is improving their entertainment, their healthcare or their business productivity.”
And golly-gosh if it isn’t Cisco technology that will, in his estimation, bring about those improvements.
Like many practiced public speakers, Chambers leans a bit too heavily on favored rhetorical devices. For example, he used this phrase on at least six occasions after laying out a premise: “You know where I’m headed with this.”
You did know, too, although Chambers is apparently convinced that such is not always the case with Cisco customers. As a result, his company is about to become more of an open book, he promised.
“We’re going to start sharing with you more and more of where we’re headed” with product road maps. “You will see us be more open on where we are in market share.”
I half expected the crowd to start singing “Beautiful Day.”
No one would dare to compare Scott Kriens to a rock star, but that wasn’t going stop the Juniper CEO from beating a drum for his company during a keynote address that opened Day Two of the conference.
Kriens as a keynoter might best be described as articulate and earnest, which is a polite way of saying he’s no ball of fire.
“What is the industry doing? Is it consolidating?” he asked rhetorically. “My answer is yes and no.”
What he meant was that the answer is really yes, but that doesn’t mean you should buy all your stuff from Cisco.
Blaring U2 music at the close of his address was a nice dig at Chambers, though.
Equivocation was not an issue during an educational session about spam.
“Users are stupid,” said Mirapoint product manager John Veizades. His proof – not that anyone in the audience was demanding any – is a recent study showing that 10% of e-mail users actually have bought goods or services offered through spam. In other words, we all know people who’ve done it, and that’s sad.
In addition to a dearth of common sense, a lack of effective e-mail authentication is undermining anti-spam efforts. To illustrate the point, VeriSign principal scientist Phillip Hallam-Baker told a tale of his two telephones that before the institution of the do-not-call list received an unwanted solicitation “only about once a fortnight.” One phone number he placed on the list; the other was left unprotected. The first gets no junk calls now, and the second gets about three a day. His point: E-mail desperately needs its own Caller ID.
Also desperately needed is more discretion by cell phone users.
“It’s an extremely hard thing to prove that our box caused their downtime,” said one indiscreet user within my earshot.
The man wasn’t suggesting that the cause of the downtime was any mystery to him. He was merely taking comfort in the idea that the uncertainty of others would be his friend. Had I seen his conference badge, you might all know the vendor’s name right now.
Getting your name known – in a good way – is Job One for vendors at Interop. Banners and posters are plastered over every inch of the convention center. One marketing message even stared up at me from, of all places, the top of a urinal. Printed on white vinyl the size of a drink coaster, the pitch read: “This probably isn’t the best place to sell you penis enlargement. Neither is your e-mail. We take care of that.” We in this case would be the folks at MailFrontier.
Another educational session attempted to answer the question: “WiMAX: The Next Big Thing?” On the panel were representatives from six vendors – Intel, Qualcomm, Sprint, 3Com, AirTight Networks and Alvarion – all of which have some stake in the matter. To say they’re bullish might be the safest bet in Vegas.
The group’s rough consensus? Fixed WiMAX will be a slam-dunk in broadband-poor locales and for certain urban uses, while the ultimate embrace of mobile WiMAX remains a bit more of an open question.
Jeff Belk, a Qualcomm marketing executive, came closest to offering a genuinely discouraging word: “You’re not going to go from standardization to millions of units without going through the kinds of painful steps that every other wireless technology has gone through.”
AT&T technology guru Hossein Eslambolchi loves WiMAX, too, and he just can’t say enough good things about IP, in general. For example, there’s his oft-repeated contention that “IP will eat everything,” which he repeated once again during his Interop keynote address. Eslambolchi also told an anecdote about VoIP sparing Martha Stewart the indignity of a Virginia telephone exchange by bringing her tony 212 New York number to her since-vacated jail cell.
Who had the biggest booth with the fewest visitors? That looked to be MCI’s ghost town. Completely unfounded, though, were rumors that the booth had been physically seized by Qwest CEO Richard Notebaert.
And then there was this bit of unexpected advice: A 3Com presenter bid farewell to his assembled audience by urging them to “have a safe show.” . . . I guess it really is a jungle out there.
Did anyone find the shirt I lost in Vegas? If so, the address is buzz@nww.com.
