TelecomNext Booth Reviews

How many black leather couches can there be?

March 23, 2006

1 Min Read
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8:00 AM -- Of all the big telecom industry trends, 2006 is clearly the year of the black leather couch, which could be found at any number of the 5,000 IPTV demos on display at TelcomNext in Las Vegas.

Beyond the comfy couch and flat-panel screen, what really makes up a booth at TelecomNext? Below are some of our reviews of the good, the bad, and the tolerable.

Let's just say that marketing budgets are tight, because there were no outstanding booths, but here were some notables:

  • Siemens AG (NYSE: SI; Frankfurt: SIE) -- The free fruit smoothie will get you far. Interesting retro decore, and very bouncy carpet. Comfy chairs and friendly fruit smoothie servers. ***

  • UTStarcom Inc. (Nasdaq: UTSI) -- Satellite-uplinked Hummer. Huge floor space. Lots of glass and metal. Double-decker meeting rooms. A nice fruit bar. Not too shabby -- but is it worth the cost? ***

  • Hula Networks -- Beer and the hospitality of the notorious Hula Girls. Always popular. ***

  • Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) -- Strange globey-platform-video-display thingy was weird but alluring and a bit creepy at the same time. We found ourselves walking through it just for the heck of it. ** 1/2

  • Fujitsu Network Communications Inc. -- Comfortable meeting room with flat screen display. Somewhat labyrithian design made us nervous -- like we might stumble across the body of a tradeshow journalist from years past ** 1/2

  • Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) -- Is John Chambers cutting back on the tradeshow budget? This booth was woefully undersized. Average population density appeared to be about 5 people per square foot. Hard to move around, let alone browse. **

— R. Scott Raynovich, Editor in Chief, Light Reading

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