NXTComm 2007 in review

Yes, it's not back to Supercomm levels, but it's still much better than the last few years.

• Most of the traffic was press, analysts, and competitors, but there were enough customers to somewhat justify the expense. Visits to Hitachi's booth by such dignitaries as the CTO of a major ILEC justified our presence, at least.
• There are many competing trade shows that are more targeted, and those appear to be better sources of leads. For example, a vendor of outside plant equipment that I talked to said that they had nearly zero traffic and NXTComm and would not be returning - in favor of OSP-specific trade shows.
• Getting interviewed for Telephony TV is nice and lets you show off to your old high school friends and obscure relatives. I asked the camera operator if any mistakes would be put onto YouTube within 5 minutes. His reply was that their goal was to be below 4. Fortunately the interview went better than expected.
• You're not a player in the telecomm business until you've been completely misquoted by LightReading. No need to issue any corrections. It'll keep the competition on their toes. Our customers know the real story.
• I'm still waiting for my interview with Alhurra TV to be translated to Arabic and get posted. That will be surreal. Any good Arabic translators out there want to let me know what they claim I'm saying? [Update: The interview is on-line here. That link should make a video player open up. The introduction to my part starts around 13:30. They did a lot of editing.]

In final review, companies like Hitachi are going to have to be at NXTComm, as it is still the premier telecomm trade show and the ILECs do send representatives. The smaller guys are going to have to think long and hard before spending the big bucks.

My prediction is that the move to Las Vegas next year will result in an increase in the "official" number of attendees and a reduction in the number of actual attendees on the show floor. Especially early in the mornings.