Supercomm - 11 June 2005
Supercomm: Chicago June 2005
The show is over and had a pretty good attendance, with a zest of the atmosphere of the old 90s. With more than 600 vendors on the floor, a lot of educational sessions, of new products, and new services, it was a busy event.
Curiously, no very big announcements have been made this year. Most of the technology announcements were focused on incremental improvements to products or new partnerships. Examples of these came in ROADMs, IMS, Ethernet and IPTV technologies.
A couple of news, however, is worth noting. First, Alcatel, Cisco and Juniper will together work on an ambitious industry-wide effort to improve quality of service (QOS) and security to every application. Many other vendors and operators are joining the effort. It is a real opportunity to define building blocks for the future high-speed internet network. Second, IBM announced IPTV plans. With a low profile, IBM does not commit to do everything in IPTV, but pushes its back-office expertise, its service delivery platforms, its middleware software architecture built on open standards, and its skills at the implementation level. IBM recognizes it must work with other vendors and more surprisingly concedes they may work effectively with Microsoft, as theyre not a competitor in this space.