b.cognosco

Went down to the Georgia World Congress Center today for Networld+Interop and Comdex Atlanta 2002. It's been a couple of years since I attended, and the show was much smaller than I remember. I guess all trade shows are, these days.

But it wasn't just the size that was different. Much (all?) of the vitality was gone. The vendors were smaller companies, though the big boys like Cisco were represented. But it was mostly a network management and component hardware vendor show.

I did think it odd that two of the three keynote speeches are by CxOs of telcoms. This is an industry that is completely wrapped around the axle -- delivers wretched service, spends inordinately on marketing and pathetically on customers, can't make a profit to save its miserable life, is the single biggest barrier to getting broadband to the masses, and is universally agreed to be in its dying throes. So why the hell did they have two of these guys giving keynote speeches? What's up with that?

But I saw a few things that were interesting. I talked to a nice lady at Exabyte who helped me spec an affordable backup system for my home network. For about $800 I can get a nice, helical-scan 8mm tape system that will do everything I need and, supposedly, is quite reliable. I'll be looking into it.

I discovered systems integrator Monarch Computer Systems over in Tucker, GA. They had some really nice AMD-based systems on display, with spiffy, well-designed aluminum cases and properly engineered airflow (unlike my crappy Micron PC case.) I never heard of them, but they won a 2001 Editor's Choice Award for Best Technical Workstation from Linux Journal. They have a middlin' lifetime rating of 5.7 on ResellerRatings.com, but the guys I spoke to seemed knowledgeable enough. I don't know how they are in serving individual consumers, though.

The other thing I saw was several small Asian vendors selling SOHO VoIP access points for ~$125. Teliann, Powernet Technologies, and MIP Telecom all seemed to be Korean companies with roughly equivalent products. It takes two of these things to be worth anything (it's really point-to-point VoIP) and I couldn't get anyone who really seemed to understand my questions about working around (or with) firewalls and such. Still, if you spend a lot on LD to talk to someone with a DSL line maybe it's worth looking into.