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January 2009 | Volume 12/ Number 1
Special Focus

ITEXPO East 2009 – the Gold on the Gold Coast

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference & EXPO East will be held February 2-4, 2009 at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Traditionally, expos are about lead generation, not sales. Instead of wandering around the country chasing down cold call leads, a great expo event brings a target market directly to booths manned by eager vendors. ITEXPO (News - Alert) is such a preeminent event, specializing in the world of advanced IP Communications. Exhibitors know what kind of buyer they want to reach — and you can find a constant stream of such people coursing through the ITEXPO Exhibit Hall. Whereas some of our now-extinct competitors merely drew a national audience, ITEXPO also attracts a sizeable worldwide participation, reflecting a diverse geographical audience for our magazines and immensely popular website. We love to hold ITEXPO East at the Miami Convention Center since our South American exhibitors and attendees find travelling to Miami quite convenient. For U.S. attendees, it’s a bit like attending a foreign show without leaving American soil.

But whether you’re arriving from Sao Paulo, London, Berlin, or New York, you soon realize that ITEXPO is actually much more than a place where vendors and service providers schmooze with their prospects and qualify them on the exhibit floor. ITEXPO’s conference also happens to be the best educational resource in the telecom industry. Presenters at ITEXPO’s commercial-free sessions are not allowed to deliver company pitches, giving you an unbiased learning experience. Each topic and presenter is hand-selected from hundreds of candidates by Greg Galitzine, Editorial Director of our magazines and website, along with Rich Tehrani, TMC (News - Alert)’s President and Group Editor-in-Chief. They ensure that only the best and most relevant sessions make it on the program at ITEXPO, delivered by some of the greatest veterans in our industry.




Our conference agenda includes sessions on just about every topic you can think of: Unified Communications (News - Alert), Enterprise Solutions, Service Provider Solutions, Call Centers, Collaboration, Regulatory Matters and even a full-day course on Microsoft’s new Office Communications Server. (All attendees are eligible to receive a certification for completing this particular course.) And don’t forget to take a look at our “TMC University” classes on IP Network Security. It’s a startling fact that real-time IP technologies and VoIP infrastructure elements that underlie UC provide many new inroads for criminal attackers (both inside and outside the enterprise) and unwitting bearers of malware. Come see how to prevent and/or defeat the growing number of assaults on the world’s real-time VoIP, instant messaging, video, and collaboration applications.

Furthermore, all attendees are invited to full-day workshops covering innovative and exciting areas of the telecom marketplace. Where else can you find a free workshop on SIP Trunking, a free Unified Communications Shootout, a free Reseller Solutions Day and a free Telecom Agent Day for channel agents and their partners to gather and hear some of the industry’s leading speakers? (Yes, we’ve greatly expanded our coverage of resellers, distributors, agents and various other kinds of channel partners.)

In our effort to keep up with world events in communications technology, ITEXPO East now also houses the new 4G Wireless Evolution Conference. The 4GWE conference, as it’s called, will help you discover key issues and challenges facing the evolution to a 4G, all IP, wireless network. This exciting collocated event will educate carriers and wireless industry professionals on the applications, technology alternatives, time frames, opportunities and challenges in the new age of mobile broadband. Fans of the imitable industry veteran Carl Ford (News - Alert) will find him very much “on the scene” and heavily participating in this event.

Another new conference to be found at ITEXPO is Digium|Asterisk (News - Alert) World, a conference that addresses “Everything Asterisk” for business users, resellers and executive decision-makers. Attendees will see at firsthand how Asterisk, the world’s most popular open source telephony software, can save you money and empower you to create more flexible telephony solutions. You’ll also encounter many leading open source vendors in the Digium (News - Alert)|Asterisk World pavilion on the ITEXPO show floor.

As if that weren’t enough, yet another special gathering appears this year at ITEXPO for the first time: Unified Communications and Service Provider Forum Panel Discussions. In this event, all attendees are invited to interactive sessions addressing key factors driving UC adoption and service provider opportunities for 2009 and beyond.

And Don’t Miss the Big Giveaway!

Perhaps the most exhilarating and enjoyable events at any ITEXPO is our “Big Giveaway” held at the conclusion of Exhibit Hall hours on the last day of the show (Wednesday, February 4th at 2:30 p.m.). This year we’ll be conducting a drawing for a 2009 Jeep Wrangler. You just have to come and visit the Exhibit Hall, picking up your entry card at the registration counter when you arrive. You then visit each booth listed on the card, review their offerings, and receive a stamp from each booth. Finally, you collect all the stamps, then drop your completed card into the entry bin in the Exhibit Hall. Needless to say, you must be present at the drawing on Wednesday, February 4th at 2:30 p.m. to claim your fantastic prize.

It’s All Here

With the explosion in popularity of the Internet, some trade shows and expos suffered a decline in popularity and foot traffic. Indeed, our lesser competitors quickly fell by the wayside. But if you attended our previous show in Los Angeles (ITEXPO West 2008), you know without a doubt that ITEXPO remains the grandest of all IP-centric events that pulls in exhibitors and attendees from around the world. It’s the place where everyone from buyers and sellers to developers, industry analysts and venture capitalists can get up close and personal.

So, come to ITEXPO East in Miami. It’s the best three-day investment you can make in terms of learning, networking and checking out the latest and most productivity-enhancing communications technologies.

Just remember to bring a comfortable pair of shoes – it’s a big Exhibit Hall. IT

Richard Grigonis (News - Alert) is Executive Editor of TMC’s IP Communications Group.

» Internet Telephony Magazine Table of Contents



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