VON Expo Blog

I was getting my hair cut on Friday, Sept. 18, before leaving Boulder, Colo., for Miami for the 2009 VON Conference & Expo, and I told my stylist that “Well, most of the work has been done now. There’s not much more I can do at this point except try to enjoy it.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of like a wedding,” she replied, with the matter-of-fact wisdom that only hairdressers and bartenders can provide.

If VON ’09 was a wedding, of sorts, I guess we are now in the honeymoon phase. Reactions to the event have been rolling in from across the Web and in e-mail. We’ll be putting out a press release tooting our horn early next week, but here I’ll share some of what the blogosphere has had to say.

“Not too big, and not too small,” Jon Arnold, who moderated a panel on mobilizing enterprise applications, wrote on his Analyst 2.0 blog on Tuesday afternoon, Sept. 22. “The caliber of speakers and sessions has been very good so far. I really liked what I saw, and the sessions were well attended.”

“Virgo [Publishing] has done a credible job of resurrecting the VON assets, and it’s good to see VON back,” wrote Alec Saunders, another moderator, in his follow-up blog. “The first VON under new management was a quality, if low key, affair.”

“Specifically the speaker series encompassing network security and DNS attack strategies, plus the Cisco presentation regarding the integration of voice data and video applications on hand held devices, were very valuable,” wrote Steve Canton, the CEO of iCore, in an e-mail.

“The highlight of the day – and of the event in my view – was the Skype keynote to close out the event, which was very well attended,” Arnold added on the final day. “Christopher Dean is Skype's CSO – Chief Strategy Officer – and the fact that someone from Skype actually has a title like this says a lot about how much the company has matured.

“The most newsworthy item from the keynote was their new focus on channels, which of course ties in nicely with both events here – VON and Channel Partners.”

“Our panel of three talented, industry thought leaders had plenty of insight on tap,” chimed in Scott Sumner, VP of marketing at Accedian Networks, in a blog on the VON Expo e-Daily report. “They squared up the state of affairs in Service Assurance (SA), and shared hard-won experience that make the most of substantial investments into service management, performance monitoring and back-office systems of all kinds.”

Another moderator, Strategy Analytics’ Philippe Winthrop, had this to say: “We had a terrific session on the future of smartphones and netbooks. I thought it was a great dialogue and I am confident the audience got a lot of value from attending.”

Of course, it’s possible to find negative comments as well, but overall I feel like Wellington after Waterloo: “It was a close-run thing,” but we pulled off a startling victory. Now we’ve got plenty to work on for VON 2010 (specifically, streamlining the conference so there are fewer and more focused sessions, expanding the expo hall, naturally, and adding some online video and interactivity for attendees and exhibitors). I hope you’ll stay tuned for an announcement on the date and location of next year’s show – and I really appreciate everyone who has accompanied us on this remarkable journey. I’m looking forward to the next steps.

By Richard Martin

 I was never a Miami Vice fan in its TV-series days, though I am a fan of some of director Michael Mann’s later work, particularly Thief and Heat. That makes it all the more surprising that I was induced to don the outfit to the right and appear on stage for the opening of the VON Conference & Expo on Sept. 22.

VON Editor-in-Chief Richard Martin has no 'vices.'

Yes, I actually own those clothes. The white linen blazer dates from my days as an expat in Hong Kong, and the huaraches – well, what can I say, I own a pair of huaraches.

The "Miami Vice" theme was part of our opening, which included a "Miami VoIP" animated video featuring IP Man and MeToo, the characters featured in a series of spoofs created by Broadvox. Broadvox is a loyal sponsor of VON. Thus the duds, and the shades.

I must say that after I doffed the Sonny Crockett look for a more conservative wardrobe, I got plenty of comments like “Hey, I liked the 80s look!” Maybe this could mark a turning point in my personal style. I think Boulder’s really ready for a resurgence of the blazer-and-pastel-T-shirt look, don’t you? (It sure beats this.)

I only hope my post-Miami Vice career is as distinguished as that of the original Sonny Crockett.

By Richard Martin

It’s not often that I have reason in this space to quote Jim Cramer, star of CNBC’s antic stock-hype show Mad Money, thank God. But it struck me as a nice coincidence that while Jiri Kuthan, assistant vice president for engineering at Tekelec (TKLC), was speaking on the panel today at the VON Conference & Expo entitled “The Danger Zone: Dealing With the Top IP Network Security Threats,” stock in his company was zooming upward. Helped by a plug from Cramer, who seems little abashed by his dissection by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show earlier this year, shares in Tekelec, which provides infrastructure for mobile Web services, climbed by more than 6 percent on Monday.

Tekelec is well-placed to take advantage of the huge uptake in the mobile Internet over the next few years, so I can’t claim that exposure at VON really boosted the stock. Anyway, I hope that Kuthan enjoyed his session at VON today. I’m sure he finished the day a happier, and slightly wealthier, man.