Exhibitors are gearing up to take part in a new IT show that will debut in Sandton, Johannesburg on 15 and 16 November 2011 and 18 – 19 July 2012 in Lagos, Nigeria.
Although many hi-tech trade shows have closed or waned over the years, the organisers of IP EXPO believe their show will attract high quality exhibitors and draw an audience of willing buyers too.
IP EXPO has been running in London for six years, creating an end-to-end view of ICT infrastructure in the enterprise environment. In South Africa, IP EXPO will launch focusing specifically on IP infrastructure, virtualisation and cloud computing for the first year.
“While South Africa is seen as a leader in technology and telecommunications on the African continent, the country is still lagging behind most developed countries,” says IP EXPO exhibition manager Lizelle Christison.
Now several undersea cables and massive backbone fibre projects have improved the cost and speed of bandwidth sufficiently for businesses to explore bandwidth-hungry services such as virtualisation and cloud computing.
These technologies are poised for dramatic growth as end-users investigate ways to capitalise on the growing volume and falling costs of bandwidth to gain a competitive advantage, says Christison, making it the perfect time to launch IP EXPO in Africa.
Her company, Montgomery Africa, has teamed up with the show’s UK founder, Imago Techmedia, not only to bring the event to South Africa, but into other countries in Africa too.
ITNewsAfrica has been selected as one of the key media partners for IP EXPO because of the website’s focus on IT and telecoms across the continent.
“IP EXPO is partnering with ITNewsAfrica because the online publication has a pan-African reach, which is where we want to take the show,” says Christison.
“IP EXPO will be launched and marketed in Nigeria next year to drive awareness and education, and the actual show will take place in 2013 to coincide with Nigeria’s infrastructure readiness.”
Registration for IP EXPO in Johannesburg has opened and founder Hugh Keeble, managing director of Imago Techmedia, expects to attract key IT decision makers.
“IP EXPO is a 2-day consulting experience, enabling IT professionals to go back to the office and make a recommendation for a complete solution that meets their organisation’s requirements,” he says.
The event is designed to create an environment where vendors can showcase their expertise and simplify complex technology issues for end users. Key organisations already participating include Aastra Telecom, VMware, Telkom, CommVault, Citrix, Mitel Networks, Veeam, Vision Solutions, Wyse Technology, F5 Networks, Troye Computer Systems, Intel and Oracle.
Three stages will host 48 seminars to help visitors understand topics such as virtualisation, data centre management, business continuity, mobility and wireless, unified communications, and the underlying network infrastructure. Other sessions will explain how to apply those technologies to specific fields such as the security market and identity management systems.
