ASCII Members A Show Of Force At Comdex

For a few days, Danny Boice felt "larger than life."

As principal partner with The Jaxara Group, a $1 million software developer and solution provider in Washington, Boice was one of 20 solution providers and ASCII Group members who set up shop on the show floor at Comdex Las Vegas 2003. For the first time in the show's history, event organizers dedicated space to solution providers,a move that paid off with new prospects and provided relevance to a show in need of re-energizing.

After giving a presentation on the power of open-source software in the education market, Boice said members of the State Department and the U.S. Department of Education inquired about using Jaxara for upcoming jobs.

ASCII Group's Weinberger says organization highlights the importance of solutions.

"So far we've had about 20 warm leads, and I'm expecting a lot of business to come out of that. We are larger than life, at least while we're here," Boice said during the show. "I never would have had the chance to talk to them if I wasn't here being supported by the ASCII Group."

Alan Weinberger, CEO of the ASCII Group, Bethesda, Md., had that in mind when he arranged with MediaLive, the show's organizer, to bring the group to Comdex.

"We hope to be a key partner with Comdex in reinventing the trade show," Weinberger said. "A lot of this is about showing the flag," symbolizing the importance of solutions in today's increasingly complex IT mix.

Although there were about 50 percent fewer vendors on the show floor than last year, there were plenty of new and innovative products. The majority of them, however, couldn't work without being tied to a full solution.

"People here are interested in solutions like Web services, but not until they try to do it themselves the first time do they realize they need what we offer," said Al Goerner, a principal at Valtech, a solution provider based in Raleigh, N.C., that consults customers on Web services implementation.

ASCII member Jeff Sherman, CEO of Warever Computing, a small, full-range solution provider in Los Angeles, spoke with attendees about document management and HIPAA compliance. A representative from Pfizer Pharmaceuticals was one of a handful of attendees who inquired about working with Warever. "That's one customer I would not have been able to meet if I wasn't here," he said.