Enterprise Connect
March 17 – 20, 2013
Gaylord Palms
Orlando, FL
Attendees: 5,500 (est.)
Exhibitors: 168
Media/Analysts: 50 (est.)
Calysto Overview
Enterprise Connect is the only conference totally focused on the needs of key decision makers in enterprise communications and collaboration. The conference delivers an opportunity to meet the industry’s thought leaders and hear comprehensive analyses of the products, technologies and applications that are — or soon will be — in the market. Enterprise Connect is focused on one goal: To help attendees make the best decisions possible about migrating, designing and implementing the right communications and collaboration products, services, software and architecture for the enterprise.
As for the theme of the show, last year was about VoIP, but this year was all about video. The majority of technology providers that were present at Enterprise Connect were talking about and demonstrating their video solutions. While WebRTC proved to be the newest buzzword to take this industry by storm.
David S. Maldow, Esq., Telepresence Options:
“If you recall, this is the conference formerly known as VoiceCon – where there were so many exhibitors fixated on video that they had to change the name.”
Expo Floor
The exhibit hall at Enterprise Connect was jam packed with booths inhabited by all of the major players in enterprise communications including: Microsoft, Cisco, Avaya, HP, NEC, Siemens, AT&T, Blackberry, Sprint, Verizon, Samsung and many more. The show featured booths by 168 exhibitors, a large increase from the 92 companies who exhibited at last year’s show.
Jim Lundy, Aragon Research:
“There were certainly more users at Enterprise Connect this year, even if some were at the Manager level, not the director or VP decision maker level that the event sponsors crave. There were more vendors too and that made the size of the event look inflated. The Gaylord is a decent event location and it appears Enterprise Connect may have found a permanent home. It is a bit funky, but it is big enough to handle this size of an event.”
Voxeo, a customer experience platform that enables creation, management, reporting and analytics of multi-modal self-service across interaction channels was announced as the winner of The Best of Enterprise Connect award, which recognizes exhibitors who have made significant technological advancements within the enterprise communications and collaboration industry.
Program
Wireless, video, Unified Communications, contact centers, SIP Trunking, the Cloud…all of these topics and more made up the focus for Enterprise Connect 2013. The opening session was titled – “Is UC Moving Toward a New Plateau or Towards a Cliff?” The session was well attended and more interesting than attendees expected. The conversation got a little heated when Rowan Trollope, Cisco’s new GM of the Collaboration Technology group, called-out Microsoft Lync as “operating behind a walled garden” and “not believing in an open system” to break-down barriers to adoption. But at the end of the day, all of the panelists agreed that UC and collaboration is growing exponentially and will see a “huge rise” this year, despite the fact that the competing visions of collaboration pervaded the event.
As we said, WebRTC was the biggest buzzword at the show. It’s a new browser based protocol that allows for real-time voice and video communication to occur right inside a web browser. Attendees overheard several conversations in sessions and on the show floor about how WebRTC will be our “savior”. On day One of the show the “conference within a conference” was held on the topic of WebRTC. The mini conference was very well attended. Attendees had a real interest in becoming informed about this hot topic, despite a significant amount of whispers of skepticism throughout the industry as to whether it will live up to all of the hype.
Media and Analysts
Media and analysts covering the enterprise communications space were well represented at this show, offering plenty of opportunity for briefings. Media partners at Enterprise Connect included: The Cisco IP Telecommunications Users Group, Current Analysis, the International Avaya Users Group, Light Reading, Lync Users Group, Mobile Enterprise, No Jitter, PowerSource Online, Pyramid Research, SIP Forum, Society of Telecommunications Consultants, Telecom Connect, Telecom Reseller, Telepresence Options and VCI-Group. Other media organizations on hand to cover the event included: UC Strategies, eWeek, TechTarget and Network World.
Summary
This year’s show was seen as a success, with standing room only in a few particular conference sessions and a steady flow of activity on the showroom floor. The conference clearly has made a shift from past years’ focus on IP communication to its current focus on the uses of video in the enterprise. After more than two decades and various iterations, Enterprise Connect remains a strong show for media and analysts relations, exhibiting, speaking and lead generation for those in the evolving enterprise communications ecosystem. (If you’d like information about how to connect with media and analysts at an upcoming show, contact Marissa Evans at Calysto.)
Blair Pleasant, UC Strategies:
“Enterprise Connect is the largest gathering of the who’s who in the UC industry, and it was THE place to be for enterprises to get an update about what’s going on in the market… If anyone thinks that unified communications is dead or dying, they clearly weren’t at Enterprise Connect. UC is very much alive, with new products and solutions – as well as customer deployments – to prove it. ”
Next: Enterprise Connect 2014 will take place from March 17-20, 2014 at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando, FL.
Articles of Interest
Enterprise Connect 2013: The Exhibit Hall Crawl Part 2
By David Maldow, Esq.
Telepresence Options
April 1, 2013
Enterprise Connect 2013: The Exhibit Hall Crawl Part 2
By David Maldow, Esq.
Telepresence Options
March 28, 2013
Live From Enterprise Connect
By Phil Hippensteel
AV Technology
March 27, 2013
Enterprise Connect 2013 Shout Outs
By Blair Pleasant
UCStrategies
March 27, 2013
Enterprise Connect 2013: The Conference Sessions Of a Cautiously Positive Industry
By David Maldow, Esq.
Telepresence Options
March 25, 2013
EC13: Focus on the Use Cases and Business Benefits
By Blair Pleasant
NoJitter
March 24, 2013
Unimax at Enterprise Connect 2013
By Douglas Green
TelecomReseller
March 22, 2013
Enterprise Connect 2013: What Was Hot, What Was Not
By Eric Lai
Business 2 Community
March 22, 2013
Enterprise Connect Day 3: Think Mobile, Not Portable
By Eric Krapf
NoJitter
March 21, 2013
Avaya, Siemens, Polycom Make UC, Video Moves at Enterprise Connect
By Jeffrey Burt
eWeek
March 21, 2013
WebRTC Eclipses Mobility as the Talk of Enterprise Connect
By Dan Miller
Opus Research
March 20, 2013
Enterprise Connect Spring 2013: AT&T Sweetens UC Offer with Managed Microsoft Lync Server
By Cindy Whelan
Current Analysis
March 20, 2013
Enterprise Connect 2013: The Real-Time Web — What it Means for Your Enterprise
By By Curtis Franklin Jr.
Enterprise Efficiency
March 20, 2013
Enterprise Connect keynote: Cisco retail collaboration experience
By Gina Narcisi
TechTarget
March 19, 2013
Enterprise Connect 2013 Contact Center News
By Sheila McGee-Smith
NoJitter
March 19, 2013
Enterprise Connect 2013: Vidyo’s latest moves
By Larry Hettick
Network World
March 19, 2013
Enterprise Connect 2013: Cloud — Opportunity, Threat or Yawn?
By Curtis Franklin Jr.
Enterprise Efficiency
March 19, 2013
Time to Get Jiggy With UC Management at EC13
By Zeus Kerravala
NoJitter
March 18, 2013
Enterprise Connect Day One: WebRTC is Hot
By Eric Krapf
NoJitter
March 18, 2013
Thrupoint kicks off WebRTC buzz at Enterprise Connect
By Gina Narcisi
IT Knowledge Exchange
