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Read on for my explanation.
Earlier this week I attended Gartner’s Application Integration and Web Services Summit/Enterprise Architecture Special Program in Los Angeles. The event was mostly a typical Gartner conference; lots of hype and buzzwords and pie-in-the-sky recommendations about the “correct” way to to things.
I put quotes around “correct” because what is considered best practices today will turn out to be less cost effective and more difficult and impractical tomorrow (0.8 probability). Sorry, Gartner joke. Anyway, there was some good, real-world information presented, and because I’m pretty good at seeing through fluff and hype, I think I got a lot out of it.
Since this conference has lots of vendor sponsors, there is a small trade show fit in around the presentations; about 40 or so booths, manned by companies of all shapes and sizes, mostly in the application program suite and legacy system integration fields, and ranging from small software or service shops to giants like Microsoft, SAP, Oracle and Siebel. Of course these vendors come prepared with lots of giveaways and hosted hospitality suites where they have the chance to feed you and get you drunk.
I also attended Gartner’s Application Development Summit in L.A. last year, which is the same kind of deal with most of the same vendors. I noticed some differences in the quality of free stuff, and it got me thinking about whether or not it signaled changes in the economy. I decided that a head-to-head comparison of last year versus this year would be the best way to settle the question, and here’s what I found:
2003 |
vs. |
2004 |
The Winner |
Category: Pens |
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Various ball-points and such, including a heavy, nice quality one from WRQ that I still use. |
vs. |
Various ball-points again, including a really nice stainless steel job from SAP. The real standout this year, however, is the neon blue glow pen from NEON Systems. |
You have gotta love a pen that glows. 2004 |
Category: Toys |
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The usual squeeze balls, notepads and other nonsense. A couple vendors had retractable cables — one had a phone cord and Oracle had a 5- or 6-foot ethernet cable that pulled itself back in to a little box smaller than a pack of smokes. EDS and Microsoft were the big players, though: EDS had a clip-on clock/stopwatch/thermometer and Microsoft was giving out a tiny little 4-port USB hub. |
vs. |
Less of the small stuff, but more of the real merchandise. Novell provided me with a golf umbrella, but Microsoft was again the big one: A tiny little USB optical mouse. Additionally, about six of the booths were raffling iPods, and Microsoft was giving away an XBox. |
It glows the same shade of blue as the pen. 2004 |
Category: Food |
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Of course food counts as schwag. Are you nuts? It was all buffet-style stuff from the hotel’s kitchen; little egg rolls, little beef Wellingtons and little Chinese dumplings |
vs. |
It was exactly the same little egg rolls, little beef Wellingtons and little Chinese dumplings as last year. The only difference was in the Hospitality suites, coming up next. |
Push |
Category: Hospitality Suites |
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There were four suites hosted by vendors, each with a different theme. As I recall, they were: “Generic 50’s Stuff”, “Tropical Something-Or-Other”, “Hey Look! We Have A Jazz Band”, and “Please Buy Our Software. Please, Oh Please.” I’m fudging on the names, but that was the general idea. All had the same kinds of buffet food as during the trade show, but this time, they each had an open bar. The event went from 6:30 or so until roughly 9:30, or until I fell down. I think it lasted until about 8:45. |
vs. |
This year, there were nine suites. The themes were along the lines of “Generic 60’s Stuff”, “Tropical Something Or Other”, “Hey Look! We Have A Jazz Band” and a few others. There was one that had a basketball shooting arcade game and real(-ish) Lakers girls, and one that gave everyone that showed up a Pirates of the Caribbean DVD (2-disc widescreen edition, no less). The one that took the cake by a longshot, in my mind, was the Arctic Lounge hosted by SeeBeyond. I have no idea what they actually do, nor do I care; all I know is that they throw a mean party. The main attraction wasn’t the two women in fur bikinis (I’m quite sure they didn’t work for the company), nor was it the oxygen bar. The thing that packed everyone in was that they were hosting a 10-player Medal Of Honor LAN party. Now these are people that understand the needs of geeks. On top of that, they were playing a laid back party mix with a Cibo Matto song every other track. The food was mostly the same as the trade show, except that a few of the vendors had gone through the trouble of bringing in extra stuff like boiled shrimp and chocolate fountains. |
It might have been close if someone would have worked Cibo Matto into the mix last year. 2004 |
Category: Speakers |
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I honestly can’t remember. Nuff said. |
vs. |
James Burke. Nuff said. |
2004 |
The point of all of this is that, if the vendors can afford to spend all this extra cash on wining, dining and wooing, then they must either be making a lot more sales or expecting a lot more sales in the very near future. From my highly scientific and exhaustive research, I can only conclude that the technology sector is on the upturn and that we will soon return to the days of stock options and daily record-breaking IPOs (0.99 probability).
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