Mitchell explains what the new program means to the Cobia efforts, the Cobia community and other vendors who might want to use Cobia. We announced partners such as ArcMentor, Portwell and Cymphonix and met several more potential partners. We even gave out some iPod's for people who were wearing Cobia shirts in other vendor's booths.
For more information on the new programs, there's a lot more information on the Partners and Support pages. If you have any coments or questions, please send them to [email protected].
I'm still getting used to being on the vendor side of the aisle, but from my point of view Interop 2007 was a huge success. Exhausting and incredibly draining, but worth every moment of the time we spent there. It's taken me a couple of days for my initial recovery, and I'm sure almost everyone else is the same, but still something I'm looking forward to doing more of in the future.
If you've never been to an event like this, one of the first things that will impress you is the size of Interop. I took a number of breaks to wander the showroom floor over three days, and I'm sure I missed a good portion of the booths. It was hard to miss the huge booths like Cisco's and Extreme Networks, but wandering amongst the smaller booths, it was easy to overlook a vendor and then have them suddenly catch your attention the next go around. Which is exactly why I toured the showroom several times, just to see as much as possible.
One thing that surprised me was the large number of wireless vendors at the event. There was a whole section of the floor that had antennas sticking out all over the place. I heard another vendor state that they almost felt like they were in a microwave every time they walked into that area, with all the yagi antennas and whatnot pointing their way. There were more than a few antennas that I couldn't even identify enough to tell you what type they were, let alone how they were meant to be used.
We had a good amount of traffic at our own booth. Even though we started a couple of our presentations
with only one or two people in the audience, by the time we'd finished, we filled almost every seat. In fact, more than once we had standing room only, which surprised me more than a little. We gave out shirts literally by the armload full. Next time I think we'll bring a few more, since we ran out by the end of day two.
Speaking of shirts, ours was one of the big hits of the show "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas ... unless you catch a virus!" We not only had attendees coming by to tell us how much they liked the t-shirts, but other vendors too. You know you're shirt is a success when other vendors want to get one.
We gave an iPod Nano each day to someone who were got pictures of wearing a Cobia shirt in a competitor's booth. One poor girl got her picture taken in a booth, but then couldn't escape from the vendor for over 15 minutes. I don't know how other vendors do that; I'm more than willing to talk to anyone about Cobia, but when someone is done talking, I'm more than willing to let them go. I guess some people think spending a lot of time with a potential customer is the
same thing as answering their questions. To each there own.
Our next big event is going to be Black Hat at Caesar's in July. This is going to be a fun event; not only does it attract a much different crowd, we're also planning on having a hospitality suite with a Wii, games, drinks and other fun stuff every day. If you want to take a load off after having spent some time on the show room floor, this'll be the place to do it! Plan on stopping by, having some snacks and drinks on us to help recharge your batteries. After a couple of days on the showroom floor, you'll need the rest, trust me. Especially if you're also attending DefCon, like I will be.
One last thing: I need to extend a huge thanks to Jason Huggett, a Cobia user who joined us at Interop. We flew Jason down to spend the convention with us and he worked at least as hard as anyone else in the booth. Soon we'll be looking for a pair of Cobia users to join us at Black Hat, so keep an eye on the blog for more information. You could end up being the next Cobia user to join us at an event.
One of the aspects that I have found most rewarding about working on the Cobia project is the great opportunity it affords me to do some old fashioned business development. Biz Dev is one of my favorite responsibilities at StillSecure. Along with Mike Grever, we are responsible for forging the partnerships and relationships with other companies that can really make a difference.
The great thing about Cobia, is that because it is a platform, there are untold opportunities for partnerships. Whether they be ISV's who are going to port and develop applications that will run on Cobia or Platform partners that may want to use the Cobia platform to build their own product on or combine with their own hardware or the value added resellers that can package Cobia with additional services and products, there is great potential. Figuring out how all of these partners fit in and bring more value to the Community at large is the strategic part of it. Going out and executing on the vision is where the rubber meets the road. Mike and I have had a great time and we are only just beginning with Cobia.
At Interop this week we will be making some announcements around partners and Cobia. If you think being a Cobia partner is something you might be interested in, drop me a line at alan(at)stillsecure dot com.
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