In my mind this year’s Fall IT Expo was a success. The floor was full of people, the conference sessions seemed to be close to what I’ve seen before, and the additions of Jon Arnold’s Smart Grid and Carl Ford’s 4GWE sub-conferences brought out new folks to the event.
First off Packet8 is marketing very smart, taking front position on the sales floor and the first ad in the show program. They also worked hard to differentiate themselves leading off the show with something different, at an event that was full of “me too” players.
The Sunnyvale, CAL based VoIP pioneers launched 8×8’s Virtual Meeting service. This is a new, all web conferencing solution. The 8×8 Virtual Meeting is a low-cost, web-based collaboration tool and is accessible from any web browser and any computing platform, with no software download required.
One big plus here is that it doesn’t even require a telephone since attendees can optionally speak and participate in the meeting directly through the web browser itself, though telephone dial-in access for locations throughout the United States (including toll free and international dial-in numbers in 19 countries) are supported, as well.
What’s good about it is the engineering team at 8×8 has also made their Virtual Meeting service integrate voice conferencing with presentation slide sharing, desktop and application sharing, instant messaging, chair control, conference control and call recording. These are the most popular features requested, so kudos to them for thinking the app through.
Additionally, it was great to see their CEO Bryan Martin so active at the show. Many of the CEO’s of public companies tend to hide behind (or force their handlers to walk behind them, only to quickly jump to their defense.) Not Martin (nor Wesley Clover’s Sir Terry Matthews who delivered a highly motivating keynote). The longtime 8×8 leader has been very visible and front and center throughout the show and clearly is not sitting back. His timing couldn’t be better. With Vonage making moves to regain luster, Packet8 is now reemerging as a force in the small business space. This app will help them alot.
Another highlight was Ali Tabasi, the Global Ecosystem & Standards at Clearwire who in his keynote really demonstrated the viability of Clearwire’s 4G Mobile Wimax, announce the planned launch of a developer’s Zone in the San Jose area that will cover the GooglePlex and Intel corporate areas. This literally is creating an wireless enterprise zone to spur development of new technology that will work on their 4G nationwide network.
Another key aspect of the show was the number of Hosted PBX solutions out there. Sadly, these all look the same and the industry is aching for different type of product. Other than the very L.A. looking booth babes, on of whom had “SIP IT” emblazoned across her chest, none of the companies had any real eye-catching market differentiation coming across.
Overall though the show was a major reemergence for the TMC folks and as I remarked to their chairman, Rich Tehrani, a very good indicator of what will be a bigger show in Miami Beach in January.