Cobia Community Blog

LinuxWorld Cobia spot open - but not for long!

Well, things happen quickly in the world of Cobia. We just posted about sponsoring a Cobia user to attend Black Hat and LinuxWorld at our booth with us. In just a few short days the Black Hat spot is already filled (and unfortunately we had to turn away a few Cobia users who wanted to take us up on our offer).

There's still good news though. The LinuxWorld spot is still open (but I don't know for how long)!

So if you would like to attend LinuxWorld on our dime (airfare and hotel), and help evangelize Cobia with us, please send me an email and let me know how excited you are to tell the Linux world (pun intended) about Cobia. You'll have a great time hanging out with the StillSecure team, get some cool schwag and of course get to see the LinuxWorld show.

And, if you are already planning to be at either Black Hat or LinuxWorld, please stop by our booth to say 'hello'. We always enjoy meeting Cobia users and talking shop. Plus the StillSecure marketing team always has interesting prizes and giveaways at the booth. I'm always amazed at the innovative ideas they come up with. (And the competition is too!)

Hope to see you there!

ResNet was a success

Yesterday I flew down to San Diego to attend the ResNet symposium at the Universitey of San Diego with another StillSecure employee, Cherie.  It was interesting to meet the range of people attending, from some top notch systems administrators to managers who didn't know much about technology but knew their systems administrators would be interested in the literature.  This was a small event, but everyone attending was excited to be there and the energy level was high.

One trend I'm excited to see is people who've already heard of and tried Cobia.  There were a small number of people who'd installed Cobia at Interop, but at an event that measures its' audience in the tens of thousands that's not a surprise.  But the fact that several people have been trying out Cobia in an audience of several hundred means we're being effective in getting the word out. 

Smaller events like this are a lot of fun to attend for us.  There's fewer vendors to see, so the attendees aren't already becoming jaded by the time they come by our booth.  And fewer people means more time to talk to each of them, which I hope is a win for both of us.  The fact that it's only one day means I can maintain a high energy level without having to worry about getting through the rest of the week.  In fact, if you've got any events like this coming up in the near future, send me an email at martin_at_stillsecure.com and I'll see if I can fit it into my schedule. 

Interop 2007 is over and it was good

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.    

We have a winner!

We're giving an iPod Nano away each day here at Interop using a scientific process sure to astound you.  We gave out a ton of t-shirts all day and told people we'd be taking pictures of folks we see wearing the t-shirts in competitor's booths.  We roughly defined 'competitors' as just about any other booth at the event.  Then we sent Jason Huggett, our guest Cobia user, out with a digital camera to look for folks. 

He came back at the end of the day with a camera full of pictures and we chose Jason Welsch as the winner for the day, mainly because he went and camped in the Cisco booth and then sent his compatriot back to the booth to make sure Jason would find him.  We figured that sort of adventurous spirit deserves some sort of reward. 

We'll be giving out another of the iPods tomorrow and again on Thursday afternoon.  If you're at the event, wear your Cobia shirt and maybe you can be the next one to win.  And if you ham it up a little when Jason finds you, it might just help your chances to win the prize, you never know.

Announcing Cobia Partner Programs, Appliance & Commercial Support

This week at Interop StillSecure has multiple announcements for Cobia. In addition to downloading Cobia for free from the Cobia site, Cobia will be offered pre-installed on a hardware appliance. Portwell, one of the industry's best known appliance manufactures, will be providing the Cobia appliance hardware. So is this just another router, firewall or UTM appliance? No, of course not, it's Cobia! The Cobia appliance retains all of the open, modular software capabilities that bring so many advantages over traditional fixed appliances. New modules can be added, existing modules upgraded and third-party ISV modules can be added as well.

Along with the new Cobia Appliance, commercial paid-for support is available for users of the free Cobia software. Many are comfortable with the free Cobia forum support but sometimes it is important to have the piece-of-mind that comes with knowing you can pick up the phone or email the StillSecure Customer Engineers. Email, phone and 24x7 Cobia support options are available. See our press release about the Cobia appliance and support options here.

Next we are introducing the StillSecure Cobia Partner Programs for VARs, ISVs and Platforms (hardware manufactures and OEMs). These programs extend the Cobia community to industry partners who bring new capabilities to the Cobia platform, bundle and integrate hardware with Cobia, and offer many services to help Cobia users. See our press release here.

The StillSecure Cobia ISV Partner Program helps third-party network and security product companies make their products available on the Cobia platform. This program gives ISVs the information, tools and support to port products and create new products on Cobia. The Cobia community will benefit by having increased functionality available on Cobia, and giving users flexibility and choices in the products they use. StillSecure is excited to announce that Cymphonix (content filtering, anti-spyware and bandwidth shaping) and ArcMentor (IM management) are joining the StillSecure Cobia ISV Partner Program.

The StillSecure Cobia VAR Partner Program brings value-added resellers into the Cobia community. Now  these VARs can resell Cobia appliances, Cobia software and commercial support to customers along with a number of installation, design and other very important services. The Cobia VAR Partner program also means that VAR parters can differentiate themselves with an alternative to the same old appliances every other VAR is selling at razor thin margins. We are excited to have DirSec (specializing in security and networking) and Haven Computing (specializing in SMB networking and security) join our Cobia VAR Partner program.

The StillSecure Cobia Platform Partner Program brings Cobia to computer and network equipment hardware manufactures and OEMs. Cobia's open, modular software platform can serve as the foundation for Intel/AMD-based network and computer equipment giving equipment manufacture the power and flexibility of Cobia and Cobia compatible software. We are pleased to announce that Portwell is part of the Cobia Platform Partner program.

To learn more about our new StillSecure Cobia Partner Programs, visit http://cobia.stillsecure.com/partner.

Join us for Interop podcasting too

We'll have our podcasting equipment at the StillSecure Cobia booth at Interop Las Vegas. Please stop by and join us to tell us about yourself and say a few words about Cobia.

Martin, Alan and I will all be at the show. Stop by!

What happens in Vegas, . . . might wind up on this blog

For those of you who may not know the big Interop show begins in Vegas next week.  Interop Vegas has become the largest gathering of the network industry under one roof.  In addition, in recent years security has played a very prominent role.  What better place to show off Cobia!  We will be exhibiting and debuting Cobia at Interop.  We are already flying Jason Huggett out to Vegas to man the Cobia booth with us.

If any of you are going to be at the show, be sure to stop by and say hello.  All registered Cobia community members will receive a Cobia T-shirt.  Plus we are bringing our cameras.  You could wind up front and center here on the Cobia site (unless you have a good reason why people shouldn't know you were at a convention in Vegas).

Also, we will be making some big announcements on our progress which we hope you will find as exciting as we do.  It should be a great show and a great time for Cobia. Looking forward to seeing all of you Cobians in Vegas!