This web blog has been quiet for the past two weeks as I needed to attend the Interop conference in Las Vegas last week. It is always interesting to see what is going on in the wonderful world of networking. I must admit, however, that the Interop show is getting a bit tiresome for me.
My first Interop show was over 10 years ago (either 1995 or 1996...I can't remember which). Back then, I remember there was a lot of excitement and variation in broadband solutions. ATM, Sonet, Frame Relay were all there every bit as strong as Ethernet. Money, as well as optimism, was plentiful.
The Interop of last week seemed to be more raft with pessimism. Shrinking budgets in most IT departments has the show a place for bargain hunting. The IT people I have talked to are trying to do more with less and are all hoping that Open Source solutions will come to their rescue.
Where does this leave the commercial networking solution companies which tend to be my biggest customers? The next few years will certainly be interesting if not challenging.