Conferences Ahoy
A couple weeks back, I went to a “Roadshow” put together by those prats up in Redmond that consisted of an RV with a about 500 pounds of computer equipment installed, and driven by some old coot who “demonstrated” some of the technologies available. Complete waste of my time.
Sure, they had an install of Windows Vista to show off, but they put it on an old laptop lacking the horsepower needed to show off the new pretty Aero Glass interface, so what we really saw could have merely been an artist’s rendering for all I know. The coot in question hadn’t bothered to keep up on the latest news, admitting that several of the guys back at HQ had given him a bunch of reading material that he “hadn’t got around to reading yet.” It’s bad when your audience is informing you about the features of your product.
Today I went to a conference put together by SonicWALL, maker of firewalls and other related products. A team of 5 guys who all seriously knew their stuff and had an actual presentation to give. The whole spiel was about as close to 50-50 sales / technical as they could get it, but unfortunately they mixed the whole thing up during the day. Would have been better, I think, if they had separated it out more so that the techies and sales guys didn’t have to sit through the whole thing to get what they needed.
On the bonus side, the Westin Hotel (750 SW Alder) laid out a great spread for lunch, including some of the best cheesecake I have ever had. I was almost licking the plate clean.
Hollerings