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After these messages: 'Show me the money!'
Infosec's sells...

By Will Sturgeon

Published: Friday 30 April 2004

For 'one night only' Tony Hallett hands over control of his regular column to a guest writer - silicon.com's own Will Sturgeon - asking only that he "be gentle with it".

Trade shows may not be the most interesting places on earth (no, really they're not) but they do serve as an effective barometer of the health of the market or industry they are trumpeting.

And there was a real buzz about this year's Infosecurity show at London's Olympia. Security weathered the downturn better than most sectors anyway but with budgets really coming back to life and security still atop most 'to do' lists - for reasons ranging from common sense to compliance - the industry is in even better health than before.

The show was massively oversubscribed this year and the crowded exhibition floor was a sea of marketing messages.

Most basic of these is the gloriously outdated - but no less aesthetically pleasing - tendency to assume that staffing your stand with pretty girls in short skirts and tight vendor-branded T-shirts will be enough to ensnare the predominantly male passers-by.

And they'd be right.

Then there are the stands themselves. Trend Micro dominated the horizon with a two storey stand in the central business district of the mini-city show floor.

Computer Associates wheeled-out (literally) their favourite showpiece centrepiece - a MacLaren Formula 1 race car, complete with CA branding EVERYWHERE!

To quote one senior CA exec, who clearly understood the importance of such gimmicks when competing in such a brutally crowded arena: "Having the car there meant we had a TV crew on the stand within about five minutes of the show opening."

CA's double coup was the in-demand lanyard deal. Everybody attending the show required a pass and most passes were worn around the neck, hanging from a CA branded ribbon.

You'd be surprised how prominent such lanyards can be. Well I was anyway.

McAfee's bright red stand may have been matched by some red faces in the marketing department. The stand had clearly been designed and constructed prior to the recent re-branding from Network Associates. No harm done, but it would be have been the ideal opportunity to lay to rest the old order. Other companies weren't so lucky (by which I mean weren't so prepared to splash the cash).

Some big names, whose blushes will be spared, were stuck out on the periphery - picking up the waifs and strays who found themselves lost having followed a girl from the Websense stand through one too many crowds before getting separated from her.

Then there was the Infosecurity branded giant Twister game (I wish I was joking) - lest anybody should forget where they were.

Then there were drinks parties sponsored by all manner of vendors (do security and alcohol mix? I'm not sure they do), the sponsored Wi-Fi hotspots, the pens, the bags, the T-shirts, the sweets and basically anything onto which you could put a logo.

There was more branding going on than at a 10,000-steer cattle ranch.

However, perhaps shameless stunt of the week goes to everybody's favourite self-publicist Graham Cluley from Sophos.

Interviewed by the BBC at the company's headquarters ahead of one of the event's big announcements, Cluley was clearly frustrated by Auntie's refusal to mention Sophos by name.

So instead Cluley ensured everybody in shot during the interview was wearing a T-shirt with 'SOPHOS' in large print - clearly visible to anybody watching the interview - even from a distance.

And you can take that last sentence as a bit more promotion for your efforts, why don't you.