And so time passes and we find ourselves nearing the end of 2014, and getting ready for the latest, greatest edition of Cloud Expo in Santa Clara.
“Are you familiar with our hotel?” asked the nice young woman at the check-in counter last night.. Why yes, I remember it when it was first built, actually, and have seen it go through many incarnations. Just tell me I have free wireless and I’ll be a non-whining, happy camper—she did.
Cloud Expo is now in its 15th or 16th iteration, having itself morphed out of the JavaEdge and WebServices Edge shows of almost 20 years ago. This year’s version also has three tracks devoted to the Internet of Things in a co-located @ThingsExpo event, it has a separate @DevOpsSummit and several sessions connecting WebRTC and the IoT.
There are also a pair of hackathons: the IBM Bluemix Developer Playground on Wednesday, and the ElasticBox hackathon on Thursday. All attendees can get into both.
I’ve been associated with this event and its production team in one way or another since the beginning, missing a few years when I was sick, but having the honor of serving as Conference Chair this year. We’ve put together about 150 breakout sessions, keynotes, general sessions, and Power Panels. This show rocks, as my generation might have put it when we were young.
This industry makes me feel young again, as the massive (and I use this word precisely) movements toward Cloud Computing, Big Data & Analytics, the Internet of Things, and DevOps commingle and converge into one great big ball of transformation.
I doubt anyone in enterprise IT is still ignoring cloud, with the majority now embracing and implementing it in one form or another. My mother’s even heard of cloud computing, and my non-tech sister keeps asking me about the Internet of Things because she’s hearing about it and wants to know what it can do for her small business.
We’re going to have beacons and things, and lots of “technology and stuff” at the show this week. You can google the show and find out all about our “rockstar” promotional efforts, and the panoply of technology that will on on view at the Santa Clara Convention Center this week.
I frankly am annoyed by the emergence of the monster single-sponsor technology event that highlights aging rock bands and politicians at the expense of a serious technology and business focus. Cloud Expo and its co-located events represent the largest independent technology event in the world, serious as a heart attack and focused as a high-end Nikon.
So come one, come all. It’s not too late to register. Either do it now or just show up anytime Tuesday through Thursday. I’ll be trying to be everywhere at once, but am never too busy to talk to our customers—our attendees are what make the show great, and I’d love to be able to take up some of your time and listen to what you have to say.