ITExpo - TMC's VoIP 2.0 Conference Review

Last week was TMC's winter ITExpo, held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Another sign of the times, I guess - the show outgrew last year's Miami venue, and they moved a bit up I 95 to a bigger space. The venue was actually very nice, and was more comfortable than Miami.

The program was quite broad ranging - really too broad in my mind. It seems that as the demand for all things IP grows, shows like this take on a life of their own. So, the show tried to cover everything - enterprise IP, carrier IP, open source, WiFi, peering, SIP, IPTV, contact centers, IMS, E911, etc. The attendence seem quite strong, but I really couldn't gauge how well all of these tracks were supported.

I moderated two sessions - one was quite well attended, and one was pretty light. On the whole, I didn't see anything radical or very new, but to be fair, one person couldn't possibly cover all these tracks. In terms of star power, the two big names you don't normally see at these events were CNBC anchor Ron Insana and Tom Ridge, the Secretary of US Homeland Security. I missed both, but did catch an interesting session from General Motors, talking about the complexities of deploying on IP on a large scale. On the whole, it was a well-produced show - just too broad a pallette for me to take in. You just have to pick your spots, learn what you can, and make the most of your meetings - and enjoy the weather!

Here are some photos, courtesy of my Nokia N90 superphone....




Mr. T - Nadji Tehrani, TMC's founder - can you tell it was the first day of the conference?




Rich Tehrani, leading one of the general sessions





The "Cranberry" - coolest device at the show. It's actually a custom job for Howard Thaw - very neat - great attention-getter, and it's truly a one-of-a-kind. Gotta like that!




Colleague Tom Howe with Mr. Asterisk, Mark Spencer




Mark with me - thanks Tom




Andy "always on" (in more ways than one) Abramson




Eli Katz of XConnect chatting with Ari Moses of Kaufman Bros.




Howard Thaw w/Rich Tehrani - Howard's company, Iotum, was a TMC Product of the Year recipient at the show. Go Canada!




Ari Rabban - paying a friendly visit




David Simon - PBX.NET - doing booth duty for IPCC




Micaela Giuhat - Sipera Systems - so happy to be there!




James Brehm, from my alma mater analyst firm, Frost & Sullivan




With Ollie and Osvaldo of Miami-based Cyneric - an up and coming IP billing vendor