The 2004 edition of the Fall VON Show was certainly a memorable one. It was by far the best attended of all VONs that I have been to, and it gave me a great opportunity to meet some of the movers and shakers of the industry. Om Malik wrote an entry in his blog about media hype, long meetings, not missing too much, etc. - and he might be partially right. But Andy Abramson got it right on his blog - the reason to go to VON is... CONTACTS! And it was a great event for that. It is not everyday that one could meet folks like Chairman Powell, Sir Terry Matthews and his son Owen, Peter Briscoe, Charlie Giancarlo, Joseph Licata, Denzil Samuels, Henry Sinnreich, John Yoakum, et al - all in a single event. No wonder I hardly had anytime to write blog updates during the event.
And from a personal perspective, going back to Beantown always brings back sweet memories from my undergrad days in this engineering school across the Charles River in Cambridge, where I spent a few great years of my life. On top of that, the 3-0 come-back-from-behind win of the hometown Red Sox was really exciting (I am a Blue Jays fan, but choosing between the NY Yankees and the Red Sox is no contest - I always love the underdogs; I believe all out-of-town folks pretty much felt the same way and were cheering for the BoSox).
Quite a few interesting developments to note at the show, which will make into a few posts in the following days, but in the meantime, here are a couple of good links:
- The State of VoIP (regulatory outlook)
- Martin Geddes' take on the show











