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By
Tim
Young, with
a special commentary by Wedge Greene
When asked by Pipeline about Intelliden's
choice to attend IQPC's Next Gen
OSS Integration Summit, Ann Latham
says it comes down to the show's “laser-like
focus” and its ability to
bring in a qualified audience at
the director level and above. Latham,
Intelliden's Director of Corporate
Marketing echoes a sentiment held
by many who attended the second
Next Gen OSS event, held March
5-7 in Boston. The show had between
100 and 140 attendees, depending
on who is doing the counting, so
raw numbers couldn't have been
a major draw for anyone who attended.
However, for companies like Intelliden,
the focus is the thing. Like many
companies, Intelliden has taken
on the strategy of focusing on
specific shows for specific content.
So are shows drawing in a hundred
people worth the time, effort,
and money it takes to attend? That
all depends on which hundred people
show up. According to Larry Ehrhardt,
Senior Director of Communication
and Media Solutions for Vitria,
everyone wished the show's numbers
had been larger, but the mix of
vendors to SPs was very desirable
at around 50-50. Furthermore, Ehrhardt
asserted that this show attracted
the buyers and decision-makers.
In the boutique setting, vendors
like Vitria were able to speak
to every service provider and demonstrate
their products to them. Latham
agreed, saying that the event was
superior, in terms of quality of
attendees, to much larger shows.
She mentioned a recent IPTV show
in London that brought in around
2500 attendees, and said that most
of them were “worker bees.” The
Next Gen OSS show, in her mind,
succeeded where the other show
had failed. The Next Gen OSS Summit’s
organizers strive to attract attendees
from among service providers’ decision
makers at the Director and VP level.
Vitria,
like Intelliden, was one of the
show's sponsors. Vitria used the
opportunity to hint at a press
release that was not officially
released until March 19, which
dealt with the launch of Business
Accelerator, which they promote
as the industry’s first open,
agnostic enterprise-class integration
suite built from the ground up
for Service-Oriented Architecture
(SOA) and Event-Driven Architecture
(EDA).
Ehrhardt also asserted that an
intimate show like the Next Gen
OSS Integration Summit discourages
vendors from “power point
noise” and the flashy sales
gimmicks seen at the largest events
and allows for candid discussions,
product demos and case studies.
That, according to Event Chair
Norman Rice, III of CA, is part
of the point. As he stated in the
pre-show piece on the event that
ran in Pipeline back in February,
the goal of this
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The Next Gen OSS Summit’s organizers
strive to attract attendees from among service
providers’ decision makers at the Director
and VP level. |
show was to allow vendors an opportunity
to listen, learn, and discuss the major
trends within the industry. The show
was also an opportunity, according
to Rice, for CA to really establish
itself as a fixture in this space,
and maintain brand awareness. While
everyone in the industry has, no doubt,
heard of CA, many aren't sure what
their role is in the OSS space. CA
saw this show as an opportunity to
amend that, but also to really devote
time and energy to promote discussion
and debate in real-world terms.
In that regard, according to Rice,
the show was a success. As an outgrowth
of the numerous panels present throughout
the event, a level of honesty and open
discourse was reached that was beneficial
to all involved.
John Petrie of Progress Software moderated
a panel on tackling data integration
for OSS. According to Progress Software’s
Olaf Kexel, the general consensus among
SPs is that data management is very
important, but hasn't been given the
attention it deserves. The Data Integration
panel included representatives from
AT&T, BT, and Verizon, which is
indicative of exactly the kind of service
provider input that made this event
worthwhile. It's easy to get vendors
to talk about solutions, but when SPs
can talk about problems in a realistic
and honest way, that makes for informative
programming. One source talked of having
meaningful conversations with reps
from BT, Verizon, AT&T, Vodafone,
Telecom Italia and T-Mobile, all within
a relatively short timeframe.
That level of open discourse helped
to unearth a few key issues. According
to several individuals present, the
need for standards was very much a
part of the discourse. While standards
have been an issue for years, the conversations
was less hypothetical at this event,
and more focused on action. “It
was a call to arms,” said Rice.
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