A Walk through the 7th international Sys-Con Cloud Expo

Last Wednesday I had the distinct honor of being part of one of Jeremy Geelan's Panel of Expert segment at the 7th annual Cloud Expo in Santa Clara. To be honest I when I got the email, despite the pleasure of being considered to present my trade, I was not too excited about visiting another series of booths and presentations that was more of the same.

Its been two years since I went to my last technology trade show, I know, I know, what was I thinking ? Right?!

By not participating in the deluge of suave marketing and sales pitches that comes around several times a year,with the "we have the answers to all your technology needs" chorus by devout technology vendors, I practically faced a tidal wave of withdrawal from this self imposed exile. What?

Arriving late, I braced myself for mass confusion and perhaps harried and annoyed staff. This stemming from experiences at other technology events. On arriving however and much to my surprise, I found the event well organised, with staff that was extremely courteous and knowledgeable.

There were also some world class researchers, technologists and presenters in the lineup and one member of staff even walked me to a venue without hesitance, when she noticed me staring down the breakout map in consternation.

Suffice it to say as I move into my new role at a Big Four firm, I will be blocking my calender for the 2011 series of Sys-Con Cloud Expos, at least for the breakout sessions.

Whilst I did not visit all sessions that were offered, some constrained by time others by choice, sessions that stood out were those by GoGrid, Unisys,Rackspace,Amazon & SAP. Of course as a technologist I expected more from Amazon; however SAP true to its reputation had a renowned researcher-its Chief Security Advisor/ Head of Security Strategy present an extremely engaging technical discussion on Cloud Security.

As a researcher of client solutions, I will be remiss if I don't mention one startup that really impressed me. This company I believe will emerge as a leader within the new technology space when the dust settles. It's name is Tilera and they are the producers of the manycore processor series; I actually made it to their booth on reference from a real-time traffic intelligence expert I ran into, whose primary aim at this Expo was to look at their systems.

Based on the stellar presentations I was able to attend by smaller firms, I found myself wanting to hear what the bigger players were doing. Unfortunately, at least from those of us on the observation deck, the two that I attended seemed unable to hook their anchor and appeared to be filling space with buzzwords and generic information. No, I will not name names...yet. But I will say that after one presentation from an established company that launched its cloud offering a while aback; 8 out of the 10 people I spoke to after were not very impressed. The other two were indifferent.

I must confess that I typically take great pains to avoid the cacophony of sales pitches, glossy pictures and the self-anointed experts, more so when they are plugging their version of a mass promoted product in a seemingly desperate attempt to claim a piece of the "gravy train" of the moment.

Over the years I find myself gravitating to the engineers and technicians who actually handle the products and know their merits and limitations from real world implementations - People I can actually learn something from, who don't repeat the brochure verbatim to me.

One presenter almost had me falling off my chair with his intensity and obviously mirror rehearsed "speech," another told me offhandedly ,"oh you represent the customers interest", well I do! Everyone is a customer at one point in time; and a customer always want the best deal for their money.

In these instances, should I dare infringe on their space as they regurgitate their well practised presentations?

Or as a technologist, should I obviate their omniscience and suggest solutions that are practical to any one customer's need, which in turn could then be implemented to ensure proper OPEX utilization?

Not I said the rabbit as he jumped down the hole.....Alice?