Gitex 2018 (Avaya)
For the second time, Avaya invited me to attend Gitex in Dubai. It’s an amazing conference, and although Avaya is just one of 4000 exhibitors, it’s a big event for Avaya International.
Avaya International is a misleading name. The division is responsible for Avaya sales and service across Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia (though not the Americas).
GITEX is now one of the largest technical events in the EMEA region, and it’s a particularly big event for Avaya International.
It’s a BIG conference – and the vendors attending go big. The booths here are some of the largest I have ever seen in at a conference, many with large upper levels. There were times when there were probably 150 people in the Avaya booth (actually many times). I was there there Sunday-Tuesday – and traffic was steady throughout. I follow Avaya pretty closely, and I was honestly surprised how many new things I saw this year.
As I’ve been attempting to do most of the year, here’s my at-event video wrap up. I touch on a lot of stuff in this video, but there way more to say. I will have additional coverage coming up soon.
There were lots of new things to see and several announcements. In addition to this video, I posted a quick look video of the new UCaaS service launched in Germany. I have another video on the digital workspace in queue, and I’ve got lots of notes, interviews, and (around 150) photos that will drive some upcoming content.
Many of those photos can seen on Twitter either under @Davemichels and/or under the hashtags #Gitex2018 #ideas2Inspire.
I didn’t exclusively hang out at the Avaya booth. I managed to smoke a lot of hookah (sheesha) and over eat Lebanese food fairly regularly. Oh, I also swung by Cisco, Mitel, and NEC (all of which had booths fairly close to each other) as well as an assortment of booths right out of Philip K. Dick novels.
GITEX, and Dubai in general, are were science fiction becomes non-fiction.
Note: I am aware that the audio is not perfect on these videos. In some regards, it’s amazing that the audio is as good as it is. Many of these expo halls are very noisy. I’m using excellent noise cancelling technology from Plantronics which does indeed cancel most of the noise, but these crowded spaces are filled with Bluetooth interference. I am looking at a DECT alternative.