It was great seeing so many of you last week. Thanks to everyone who made it out to Las Vegas to join us. In these tough times, it was great to come together as a community and see that innovation is tremendously strong and our industry is healthy and vibrant.

Since many of you are back in the office summarizing your Interop experience, I thought I’d take a stab at it, too.

I’ll start where I left off above: I suggested in the opening keynote that the biggest takeaway of the week would be that we’d see that our market is on strong footing and that we will help lead the way out of the recession. I don’t think I went too far out on the limb here. I knew how strong our program was in the big growth areas such as virtualization, cloud computing, unified communications and data center. I’d also talked to many of our exhibitors coming into the show who were saying business was relatively good considering the overall economy. I also knew that while overall attendance would be down from last year, our pre-show survey indicated this year’s attendees were coming with deep pockets and long shopping lists. So when you put together enthusiastic buyers, strong exhibitors and surging innovation, you get the magic that you can only experience at a big event like Interop: We came together and showed ourselves - and many others outside the convention center via Interop TV, Twitter, vendor blogs and media converage - that our market has tremendous momentum right now.

Cloud Computing: Drilling down into show highlights, you have to start with Cloud Computing. We had blanket coverage, from the Enterprise Cloud Summit to Cloud Camp and the Cloud Zone on the show floor. Going in we were a little bit in danger of adding to the hype around Cloud. But I also wanted to be sure gave everyone the right toehold into the Cloud scene. Attendance was strong at all our Cloud programs, so interest is certainly high. Clearly, though, the Cloud story is a complex one that will require IT leaders not only to keep tabs on emerging technology solutions, but perhaps more importantly, on on understanding where, when and how Cloud services can be applied to one’s own IT challenges. To learn more about the Cloud, check out some of our videos from last week, including our keynotes from SAP CTO Vital Sikkah and IBM VP Rick Telford, as well as a fireside chat with Amazon CTO Werner Vogels during the Enterprise Cloud Summit

Data Center: Undoubtedly, though, Cloud Computing, along with virtualization,  is fueling tremendous interest in speed and flexibility inside the data center. The old Sun adage of the “network is the platform,” is becoming a reality in the data center: As servers and storage are virtualized, the network becomes the master cylinder. And no surprise, this platform is the next battleground for networking companies, with everyone gunnng for Cisco, of course. Watch our keynote panel on Reinventing the Data Center and read the analysis of my co-moderator, Art Wittman, who is concerned about data center management and standards.

I think we’ll remember this year’s show as the start of a long battle for data center supremacy among the leading networking companies.  Cisco a few months ago raised the ante by adding server capabilities to its deep set of offerings via its Unified Computing System. By doing so, however, it punched a hole through a competitive firewall by turning its guns against erstwhile server partners HP and IBM. Cisco’s move also opens up the field for competitors such as Brocade, Juniper, Force 10 and 3Com, via its new H3C division, as well as the start-up Arista. Cisco isn’t, of course, giving up ground easily: UCS, after all, won a Best of Interop award. I also noticed sitting through a few Cisco presentations in the Interop Conference that Cisco’s pitches constantly reflected the depth and interconnectedness of their product lines. Cisco is well prepared for battle against re-energized competitors. That said, it’s just going to be plain fun watching HP take off the gloves and come right at Cisco. From the opening keynote where it announced a big UC partnership with Microsoft to its slick, front-door booth, HP pretty much owned the show.

Wireless: Speaking of gloves, Xirrus had the most talked about booth featuring a full-sized boxing ring. Xirrus put WiFi in the spotlight, along with Aruba, which also snagged a Best of Interop award with a branch office solution featuring remote management capabilities.

Virtualization is the current turbine for change and innovation in the IT market. I expected full rooms when we discussed emerging topics such as virtualization management and security. What I wasn’t prepared for was the crowds that gathered any time there was a discussion of desktop virtualization. Without a doubt, this is going to the next “big thing” for many IT organizations. Gartner, in fact, recently suggested desktop virtualization will experience massive growth.

No trip to Interop is complete without a tour of the InteropNet. Built by a couple of dozen sponsors including Enterasys and Qwest and host of volunteers, the network once again performed flawlessly. If you missed the tour onsite, check out our virtual version here.

Thanks again to all who made last week possible. And if you couldn’t make it to Vegas, we hope to see you at Interop New York in November. That is, unless you can join us in Tokyo in June or at our new event in Mumbai in October.