IBC 2009 – Amsterdam

20Sep09

Last week I was in Amsterdam with my colleagues for “IBC 2009” to represent our company Net Insight.  IBC stands for “International Broadcasting Convention” and is an annual trade show for broadcasters, content creators/providers, equipment manufacturers, professional and technical associations, and other participants in the broadcast industry.

Net Insight Partner Meeting:

After reaching to our hotel (on the right), Bengt (our  product manager) and I decided to move on to our partner meeting at downtown Amsterdam. The event took place in Hard Rock Cafe which was by the river and had a very pleasant atmosphere.

The meeting started with Net Insight executives having presentations about the company and the latest developments like IP Trunk and Ethernet Switching  Since the attendees were actually our partners, people were listening with full enthusiasm.

The interest has even peaked up when a magician came to the stage and did really cool magic tricks. The event went on with the award ceremony for the best partner of us. There were a lot of interesting presentations. For me Nikos’s presentation about how Net Insight delivered the Beijing 2008 Olympics without a single packet loss was the most interesting.

After we have listened to all the presentations it was time for the long-waited dinner. Filling our stomaches to the full, we were ready to network and connect with the other professionals. I had the pleasure to meet a lot of interesting and nice people from all around the world. They have shared different actual information about the markets that we were operating. I have seen once more that even in Europe the markets are so different from each other and local conditions are totally different i.e companies tend to be much more price-sensitive in Netherlands.

A Big, Real Big Convention Center

The first impression I got from the RAI Convention Center was that, it is really BIG! There were more than 45.000 attendees and a lot companies showing their latest products and connecting with their potential customers. People were waiting in the lines for registration and it was really crowded even at the first day.

At The Booth

This was the first time for me to work at the booth and be exposed to the potential customers who were asking questions about different features of our products. Listening to the questions they have asked and how my colleagues answered them, I began to understand better our place in the market and what type of problems we are actually solving. Seeing smiling customers who were coming back to see what we have developed lately was real good sign for the company.

Walking Around The Trade Fair

Although I didn’t have much time to walk around and see what other companies have been doing, Anders (our pre-sales guru) showed me around and gave me a lot of information about the competition and the market. We have seen many interesting stuff but I can list some of them as follows:

• 3D HD TV – which you watch with special glasses
• Hollywood quality cameras
• Remote controllable helicopter cameras
• Of course Net Insight products 🙂

Amsterdam

Meanwhile, we had a couple of hours after the working hours to see the town and learn what it offers to the visitors. As far as I have seen, Amsterdam is a very lively city but the taxi drivers that I have talked told me that it is only weekends. But  I can still say it gives you much more living energy compared to Stockholm.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, during this trade fair, I had the opportunity to have a look at the “big picture” of the industry and see where we fit in this picture. Talking to the customers and partners, I have learned more than I could have learned in months. I have to say that some of them knew better than me, so I actually was listening and learning from them as well. I am glad that I was at IBC 2009 and looking forward to attending the next one in 2010.

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Tags: "ibc 2009", ibc, international broadcasting convention, net insight