Thanks for the excellent post. As a point of clarification, while the costs of the modeling and equipment may, in some cases, be equal to shipping of the equipment (and this depends on the number of products, of course) the virtual solutions are 100% re-usable. That is, they can then be used for the next trade show. And the next, etc., etc.  Once the assets have been created, they are re-used over and over, with no incremental costs. So the cost-benefit is huge, considering that the cost of shipping products (plus drayage, and product acquisition costs, and people expenses to set up/dismantle the equipment) is a per-show expense that has no reuse - the financial advantages of the virtual solution are enormous. Many companies even use this Kaon solution in their sales offices, executive briefing centers, and at a variety of customer/analyst/product launch events - all without incurring any new costs associated with content development. These cost advantages augment the superior customer experiences (being able to inspect and operate on the virtual product models much more easily and completely than taking the physical products apart, for example.)  Marketing and sales personnel also prefer this approach because the detailed benefit/feature product/solution information within these virtual product models provides a concise, consistent, and accurate way to deliver key differentiation knowledge at every customer touch point - regardless of the location.

In the interests of full disclosure, this post comes from a Kaon employee.

It was the same at Broadband World Forum -- there were a lot of people there but few were on the show floor. Folk were there to meet up - that's why having some genuinely interesting presentations, decent coffee, great Internet access, and a decent number of people are the key ingredients these days for a good show.