LinuxWorld Boston on fire!
I knew I should have gone to LinuxWorld Boston yesterday instead of this morning. Yesterday, there was a moment of drama when a Unisys server overheated and smoke billowed from the company’s booth. There was yet more drama later in the day when a woman passed out right next to the Unisys booth (though unrelated to the earlier incident) according to eye witnesses. Nothing much at all happened while I was there, just the usual medium-grade expo stuff. I overheard a couple of people compalining about how small the expo was, but I think I’ve overheard that conversation at every expo I’ve ever been to anywhere. Expos aren’t about size, expos are about grabbing trinkets, checking out booth babes, and doing the chit and the chat, as Dane Cook might put it.
Bloggers at LinuxWorld:
Bryan Smith checks out some hardware.
An Indiana cowboy drops in and finds some wicked cold weather. Yes, a cowboy.
Technocrat lists the awards winners but disses the expo for not having HP or IBM as exhibitors.
Silicon Valley Sleuth has praise for the expo:
Open source is about creating open standards first and making money second. The Linuxworld organisers were confused about that for a short while, but have gotten the message.
Virtualization was a dominant buzzword at the LWB. I have no freaking idea what it is.
UPDATED:
The chit and and the chat only takes you so far if you’re actually looking to get some business out of the convention:
2 days travel + 1 day setup + 3 days show = 6 days spent.
$2000.00 in travel + $3000.00 in show costs (and we didn’t even pay for our booth! Our partner IBM gave us part of theirs…) = $5000.00 spent
Qualified leads: 7
Tom Hoffman of Ed-Tech Insider:
Overall, LinuxWorld seemed to be losing a bit of steam, I think because Linux is such mainstream IT these days, it doesn’t have as much of a unique identity. It is just part of the fabric, which is a good thing. On the other hand, what we do need, very badly, is a Linux-in-Education-World conference, because there are so many things going on around the world that are completely disconnected.
Filosofo makes what is I guess the consensus comment:
I was surprised at how few attendees there were; maybe it had to do with today’s being the last day of the conference. Those at the booths seemed a little desperate to get rid of their free t-shirts and pens.
From what I’ve been hearing day three was the banner day for the expo.
Matt Woodward with day by day reports from the floor.
And here’s a guy who thinks “[t]his year’s show seemed smaller than last year, or maybe it just seemed to be a rehash of the same old show, with the same vendors selling the next dot-release of their software.
I was unable to attend the conference yesterday, but I was told from those onsite that attendance was down, making some of the paying vendors at the expo unhappy. This is my first LinuxWorld (gasp!), and from what I can see from the main conference area, the expo is larger than OSCON - and most closely resembles something similar to the size of MacWorld (that is, since MacWorld started using only one half of the Moscone center in SF).
Maybe it’s the dreary, rainy Boston weather, but I don’t pick up much of a buzz on the show floor. Take away the vendors, analysts and press and I’m not sure there’d be anyone left, which I hope is testimony to the conference sessions. Most vendors I’ve talked to so far are bemoaning how “quiet” the show is and that the three-day expo is too long, though most are also extolling the “quality” of attendees, which in my nine years of covering technology tends to be a familiar refrain at these things.
Before they hit the expo floor, three of Joomla’s core developers wooed the crowd at a BostonPHP meeting.
The convention hall:
