The UC Expo trade show is now called Connected Business. My complaint with the former name, Unified Communications Expo, was that it was a bit of a trendy bland catch all for something that used to be known as VoIP.

I’ve been waiting for the new buzzword to come along for a while. However I can’t for the life of me believe that “Connected Business” is this new buzzword. We don’t even really need a buzzword.  Marketing departments around the country will now be shouting “oh yes we do – we get paid loads to come up with buzzwords”.

The show has for the last few years just been a place to go and meet mates. There has been very little to differentiate vendors of UC systems and solutions, certainly in the feature sets. These feature sets have been built up over decades.

You might ask yourselves, other than the source of a physical get together for a beer, why bother going? Why bother exhibiting? Everything is done online nowadays. Even the selling. In my recent experience businesses exhibit at these shows because they need to be seen to be in the game – if all their competitors are there but they are not that sends out the wrong signals.

I’ll be surprised if I learn anything but I’m going to go anyway. See ya there.

Connected Business – the show formerly known as Prince UC Expo.

Read previous notes re UC Expo here.