OpenSource World/NGDC/CloudWorld Experiences

I've been running from meeting to meeting at IDG World Expo's OpenSource World/Next Generation Datacenter/CloudWorld Conference at the Moscone Center in the heart of beautiful San Francisco (see OpenSource World/NGDC/CloudWorld.)

Here are my initial impressions of the event:

• The event is significantly smaller than any I can remember in the past.
• The vendor area is open a much shorter time, it is much smaller than ever before and fewer vendors are represented.
• Most of the people I spoke with come from San Francisco. The primary exceptions are vendor representatives, media representatives, representative of research firms and speakers which came to the event from all over. This used to be an international event.
• The folks from IDG World Expo were as friendly and helpful as ever.

What's happened?

It is clear to me that IDG World Expo is doing its best to present a quality, interesting event. It is also clear to me that a number of forces have lined up against this event and those like it.

• Organizations desire to cut costs at any cost means that they sent fewer staff members to this event or none at all. I would suspect that those who chose not to attend felt that they could get the information they needed by reading posts (such as this one) and visiting supplier websites.
• Suppliers who came to these events in the past evaluated the number of solid leads and sales that can be directly attributed to show attendence. Some chose to come. Others chose to forego the opportunity.
• Open source software has become pervasive enough that a separate conference is of less interest than conferences focused on workloads, specific vendors' products or market segments.
• The definition of what "next generation datacenter" means is still in transition and, so, wasn't a very strong draw.
• "Cloud Computing" is being attached to anything Web based even if it really doesn't offer even the minimum necessary to be classified as cloud computing.  This, of course, decreases the usefulness of this catch phrase.

I must admit that I was more than a little disappointed to discover that the vendor area didn't open at 9 AM or 10 AM as in the past.  Speaking with vendor and end user representatives has always provided the greatest value to me.  The value of this event is sharply dimished now that the vendor area is made available for such a short period of time and is rather small. Maybe when the show floor opens, my opinion will change.  I'll let you know.

2:30 PM PT update

I was contacted by Noe Sacoco of IDG World Expo's PR firm, Swartz Communications. I've obtained permission to reproduce that message here:

Just saw your OpenSource World article. I'm reaching out because I wanted to clarify that IDG World Expo shifted their strategy for attendees this year. The show is no longer open to the public and is only comprised of IT professionals, technology buyers and C-Level decision makers. IDG World Expo went public about this decision in March.

I've enclosed more information below for your reference.

Best, Noe Sacoco on behalf IDG World Expo

This year, OpenSource World™––is co-locating with Next Generation Data Center™ (NGDC™) and CloudWorld™––has broken from tradition and will no longer be open to the general public. Instead, IDG World Expo has rigorously qualified thousands of attendees to ensure that participants represent only IT professionals, technology buyers and C-level decision-makers.

Early aggregate data indicates that close to 87 percent of those registered to attend have an IT-focused or management-level title and more than 86 percent have a purchasing role in their organizations. Additional pre-registered attendee data includes:

• Close to 50 percent have annual IT budgets in excess of $25,000 and 16 percent have budgets of more than $1 million.
• More than 22 percent are interested in cloud infrastructure, platforms and applications. Virtualization, desktops and notebooks, networking, services and optimization and security make up the next four areas of interest.
• More than 21 percent of attendees come from the software, application development and ISV industries while more than 18 percent represent business services. An additional 7.5 percent are in education and 5.6 percent are from the finance, banking and investment communities.

The result is a high-value group of attendees interested in the face-to-face professional networking, world-class education and access to new product innovations for the data center available only at OpenSource World, NGDC and CloudWorld.

Thanks, Noe, for the clarification.

Analysis of response

The change in focus explains the drastic reduction in event size. This size reduction also meant that I was unable to learn what organizations were doing (including best practices, worst practices, customer views of suppliers and the like). Nor was I able to speak with vendor representatives from the vendors who didn't take part this year. In the end, I, personally, didn't achieve my goals.

I suspect that members of the target audience - the purchasing managers, the IT decision makers and even the developers - were not able to have the personal interactions with subject matter experts necessary to bring needed information home with them as well.

I'll be at the event another day and hope that what I experience will change my opinion.