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March 14, 2005
Spring 2005 VON Recap: A week that WAS!
As promised, the week of March 7th 2005 was a very big week for the world of VoIP when Spring 2005 VON took place in San Jose. There were literally hundreds of press releases issued and hundreds of related stories filed by the attending media during the week.
Last week I felt both humble and proud while VON was taking place. Having been there five years ago in 2000 when just about everyone in the tech conference space had a great year (us included) and having experienced the past five years to come back bigger and more energized than before, it sure felt great to be there. Each time I produce VON I experience something I've learned to call: VON Blur. Last week I ended up disconnecting from the virtual world and stopped checking email. 4,000+ emails later, in hindsight I regret that I missed the opportunity to catch up with some friends during VON because I didn't see their messages. Going forward, if I ended up disconnecting, I will suggest for people to send me SMS if they must reach me while VON is going on.
Tuesday, March 8th was especially memorable for me as it was the day that AOL said Hello! to the VoIP industry which was followed thirty minutes later with FCC Chairman Michael Powell saying Goodbye!
This time at VON I attended and participated in more sessions that I have done in years and in addition to my Industry Perspective on Tuesday morning, I moderated our General Session: Ten Years Back, Ten Years Forward. I was one of the panelists in our VoIP Bloggers session and sat in a number of sessions including our Peripheral Visionaries panel which in addition to the invited speakers, included a friend of mine, Monte Farber, who is a world renown psychic and was in the audience to share his take on the future.
In San Jose we experienced what can be best described as the "second wave" in the growth and depth of the IP Communications industry. The 6,000 people who were part of our community in San Jose were the largest we have ever hosted. There was a depth with regard to the kinds of companies represented and the number of people who came to visit the exhibit floor. Our conference delegate community also experienced growth and we really did end up being just about double in size of where we were in Spring 2004 and grew by about 20% from Fall 2004 VON in October.
Walking around the show floor, I couldn't help but notice that the ecosystem supporting Open Source Communications is growing and that just like how the advent of VoIP disrupted the business plans of traditional carriers during the past seven years, open source communications will have a similar effect on the legacy PBX marketplace. PBX vendors need to do more than just add IP to their roadmaps and learn how to add a S to that and talk S-IP.
I enjoyed watching a Wi-Fi VoIP ecosystem demonstration that showcased Wi-Fi/GSM roaming. This was the logical next step after seeing the powerpoint pitches describing this last October during Fall 2004 VON. I also enjoyed the demo of a new telephone form factor that was on display in one of the booths.
The Spring 2005 VON Community was 6,000 people in size representing 52 countries. While all of the delegates didn't speak English, they all did speak IP. :-)
Spring 2005 VON brought back memories of 2000 in many ways. Seeing the re-emergence of both the Industry Standard and Red Herring added to the feelings.
The pulver.com team will be on the road producting a number of events during 2005. Next stops on the "2005 pulver.com World Tour" include:
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Posted by jeff on March 14, 2005 07:21 AM | Permalink
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