Trade Shows

Trade Shows

In a time of downsizing and cost-cutting, every penny matters. Trade show demonstrations of management software can prove to be very costly - in both time and resources. How is your company planning on demonstrating your management applications at N+I in Atlanta or other trade shows? Most likely engineering and marketing get together to determine the type of setup you want to demo, the hardware/software needed, etc. Once the demo is created, all the boxes of networking gear are shipped to the convention center. If you're lucky, when the equipment arrives, it's still in working order. Then a technician must recreate the demo environment by setting everything up exactly as it was in your lab. Sometimes this entails running devices for a few hours in order to produce the right values. If something changes, then most likely the demo will not work. Many companies even send development engineers to get things going just because of these. All these factors translate into a sizable investment of time and money for a trade show demo that will only last for a couple days.

What is the alternative? Some companies have decided to replace their live demos with canned PowerPoint presentations, but this is not a very effective tool. Seeing is believing, and customers at the trade show want to see how applications behave in real-time. There is a solution!

Today, MIMIC can help you create the simulation of complex multi-vendor networks for demos. The simulated network allows potential customers to experience the real-time capabilities of the most sophisticated management applications. This is without the cost of purchasing and lugging around third-party networking gear. Sales reps can even carry the demo on their laptops and set it up in a very short time. They can show how their product behaves in extreme conditions very easily, because they can pre-configure different network scenarios in advance. Reps are no longer limited to demonstrating their products on the few pieces of equipment available at the show. They can easily demonstrate the scalability of their products through MIMIC's "network-in-a-box" capability.

Reps can also provide in-depth demos, highlighting specific features in which a potential customer may be interested. They can change the network or device configurations on the spot without affecting other demos that are taking place in the booth. They can impress the customer by performing demos on huge, complex networks that would otherwise not be possible. What makes this more compelling is that a MIMIC simulated environment is very portable, so reps can repeat the demo in meeting rooms at the trade show or at a follow-up meeting at the customer's facility.

Demos sell, especially when vendors can properly demonstrate the extreme usefulness of their products. In addition, if the customer would like a copy of the demo, this can easily be sent to him or her.

Overall, MIMIC helps in creating complex portable demos at a fraction of the cost. Many companies have successfully used MIMIC to power their trade show demos. Some of these include: RiverSoft, APC, Infovista, Avaya, InterWorking Labs, NetScout and Fujitsu.

For this very purpose, Gambit offers the "Powered by MIMIC" program especially for N+I show demos. We will provide to an exhibitor at N+I a free copy of MIMIC and the support necessary to prepare the demo. To find out more information about "Powered by MIMIC" or other applications of MIMIC, please contact marketing@gambitcomm.com.

If you would like to share how you are benefiting from MIMIC or if there is an aspect of MIMIC that you would like discussed, please let us know at marketing@gambitcomm.com.