Cisco has annulled its Networkers technical conference in Australia this year in favour of launching the broader Live! technical and business forum in 2011.
Cisco Live! is scheduled to take place at the Melbourne Convention Centre from March 29-April 1, 2011, and is aimed at technical individuals as well as IT managers and business executives. As well as the traditional Networkers seminars, it will include developer, systems, executive, partner and service provider streams relating to vertical markets, computing, storage, video, applications and management.
Cisco launched the Live! event in the US four years ago, and has since rolled it out in Europe. The next US forum kicks off in late June. According to a spokesperson, Cisco Live! was a better fit with the vendor’s three-pronged architectural play (borderless networks, collaboration and virtualisation) and its industry solutions focus.
The spokesperson said the US and Europe event ran every year and the Australian program should follow the same schedule. The lack of a Live! forum locally in 2010 was due to the change of format and switch from the Gold Coast to bigger facilities in Melbourne.
Cisco Networkers Australia was attended by more than 1000 people in 2009. The Live! event is expected to draw in significantly larger numbers from both partner and customer organisations.
As an example, its evolving markets manager, Ben Dawson, highlighted smart grids, connected communities and buildings as the way forward for networking.
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