To all Interop attendees and IT professionals alike, now is the time we get to debut the initial lineup of Interop Las Vegas keynotes. The high quality of thought leaders who will take the stage from the likes of Cisco, Juniper Networks, PayPal and more predicts a promising week of insightful education at this year’s event in May.

It’s an exciting time of year when months out from an event the initial conference program and keynote lineup is announced.  You can plan to hear from the following:

• Brett Goldstein, Chief Information Officer of Chicago
• Robert Soderbery, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Enterprise Networking Group, Cisco
• Bob Muglia, Executive Vice President, Software Solutions Division, Juniper Networks
• Steven Shalita, Vice President of Marketing, NetScout
• Michael Barrett, Chief Information Security Officer, PayPal
• Chris Drumgoole, Senior Vice President, Cloud & Data Center Services, Verizon Terremark

So there you have it.  The first batch of keynotes looks to be a thoughtful blend of visionaries from companies and organizations that can share their knowledge with attendees around the core technologies shaping the business IT ecosystem.  Stay tuned for more content updates as the event nears.

Don’t wait, register for an Expo Plus pass and get access to both Keynote days, the Expo Floor, and two conference sessions!

Joylyn Tanner – PR Manager here with Interop.  I wanted to take a quick second to give a shout-out to the Best of Interop finalists!  It’s always exciting to see who is leading the charge in innovation within the business technology market.  And it’s exciting that Interop and InformationWeek Reports have joined forces once again to bring you the Best of Interop, which recognizes some of the most innovative technologies in the industry.  What’s Best of Interop you say?  Well, I’m glad you asked.  Best of Interop is a competition amongst Interop exhibitors who submit their products/services for consideration. Based on the products believed to have the greatest potential to impact and advance business technology efficiencies, a judging panel of editors and analysts from InformationWeek Reports select finalists – allowing these companies to tout their prestigious Best of Interop finalist selection throughout the year.  I know, that in working with the media leading up to the event, this is certainly an award that garners eyes and attention.

More than 130 companies’ submitted products for consideration but only 24 can be finalists.  So, just this week, the finalists across eight different categories were announced and include the below:

Cloud Computing & Virtualization

Cisco – Cisco UCS Virtual Interface Card 1240

Citrix Systems – Citrix VDI-in-a-Box

Kontiki, Inc. – Kontiki Enterprise Video Platform

Collaboration

Alcatel-Lucent – Alcatel-Lucent OpenTouch Conversation

Avaya, Inc. – AvayaLive™ Engage

HD Distributing, LLC – SCOPIA XT5000

Data Center & Storage

Ceph Storage, Inc. – Ceph

Panzura – Panzura Quicksilver Global Cloud Storage System v3.0

Riverbed Technology – Granite

Management, Monitoring & Testing

NEC Corporation of America – NEC ProgrammableFlow Controller, PF6800

Net Optics – Spyke

Riverbed Technology – Virtual Cascade Shark

Networking

Gnodal – New GS-Series Switch

Mellanox Technologies – SX1024

PLX Technology – TeraPHY TN8045 10GBASE-T Tranceiver

Performance Optimization

Cisco – AppNav Virtualization Technology

Citrix Systems – Citrix NetScaler 10

Riverbed Technology – Steelhead Cloud Accelerator

Security

Avaya, Inc. – Avaya Identity Engines

ManageEngine – Firewall Analyzer

McAfee – McAfee Network Security XC Cluster

Wireless & Mobility

Broadcom Corp. – BCM43460 – 5G Wifi System-on-Chip (SoC)

Cisco – Aironet 3600 Series Access Point

Cloudpath Networks – XpressConnect Enrollment System

So there you have it!  Winners will be announced onsite, May 8^th on the show floor.  We’d encourage you to stop by their booths and get the inside scoop on the latest innovations that could likely help shape your business technology strategy this year.

Congrats again to all Best of Interop finalists!