Interop Las Vegas 2011

“How is a $20 bill like a shirt (during Interop Las Vegas)? Neither one gets changed the whole week.” So complained a waitress about the lack of generosity of some of the attendees during Interop Las Vegas. More than one individual may learn that seeing the Matt Damon, Kevin Spacey movie, “21” does not make one a card counter. Hopefully, people won’t get confused that “The Lion King” has actors portraying lions and other African mammals while “Cheetah’s” has cougars.

Interop Las Vegas, smaller in size from its peak from the .com bubble burst a decade ago, remains one of the pre-eminent technology trade shows in North America. Less focused than RSA San Francisco 2011, they will still attract a sizeable crowd during its run, May 8 through 12th http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/

Over 350 companies and around 15k attendees will be taking over Mandalay Bay and some of the other casino/hotels during the week of April 8 at Interop Las Vegas. At, RSA in San Francisco, presentations had to include the words “cloud” and “virtual” in order to get any attention. It will be interesting to see what the buzz phrases are during Interop.

The security track at Interop Las Vegas will be Information Security and Risk Management Other tracks include - Cloud, Data Center, Enterprise 2.0, Future of Work, Networking, Storage, United Communication, Video Virtualization, Wireless and Mobility.

While Interop Las Vegas has much more breadth compared to RSA, there will be a number of security companies attending. These include companies involved in internet security, Symantec, McAfee, Barracuda, for example. Sophos and Kaspersky will not be in attendance. The only “avast” that will be heard will be at Treasure Island at the other end of the strip. To see a list of companies whose foci include security http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/2011/exhibitor-list/#products-services-tab

The focus of this blog during Interop week is still TBD. It will not be on IPO, initial public offering, or loans. The best tchotchkes and the companies giving them out may be listed. Companies who are the most aggressive in hiring “las Vegas” type booth help may be listed. Interesting talks may be covered. Some of the keynotes may be discussed. As always, there are parties at night. Much above avg parties. After all, this is Vegas, Baby! Speakers from Cisco, IBM, Citrix, Internet pioneer Vincent Cerf, and others. No Bill Clinton like RSA had. http://www.interop.com/lasvegas/conference/keynote-speakers.php

What happens in Vegas.....