N+I - Networld+Interop goes back to plain old Interop

Networld+Interop, the long-running networking trade show that takes place next week in Las Vegas, is dropping its unwieldy name for one that's strangely familiar: Interop.

The show started as Interop in 1986, in Monterey, California, and was a gathering for engineers to plug their data WAN (wide-area network) gear together and establish interoperability, said Lenny Heymann, current vice president and general manager of the show. In 1994 it merged with Novell's LAN-oriented Networld show and took on the combined moniker. The current presenter, MediaLive International, decided the old name worked once again.

"What we're talking more about in the show these days is interoperability between infrastructure, devices, applications and people," Heymann said. "'Interop' when the show first started was about making the network talk to itself." Highlights of this year's show will include wireless LANs, VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol), security, 10-Gigabit Ethernet and network storage, he said.

Like other shows, Networld+Interop has expanded and contracted with the industry. A fall East Coast edition started up in the mid-1990s and was discontinued after 2002. This year Interop will leave its longtime home at the mammoth Las Vegas Convention Center for the smaller Mandalay Bay Convention Center across town. But Heymann expects a good show this time: Last year there were about 340 exhibitors and 16,000 attendees, and this year MediaLive projects at least 375 exhibitors and about 10 percent more attendees, he said.