Infosec 2011: Where did all the tyre-kickers go?

While the glitz of previous years was toned down, the quality of leads at this year's Infosec impressed exhibitors

Exhibitors at Infosec were complaining of lower footfall but lauding the quality of leads as the IT security fair entered its final day.

The glitz and glamour of previous years may have been toned down, but all the major names - barring Juniper and Blue Coat - were present and correct.

Official data indicates that more than 9,000 visitors passed through the gates of Earls Court in the show's first two days.

Infosec is seen by some as an indicator of who wants to win big in security and, on that basis, it was McAfee that emerged as the undisputed alpha male with a muscular, two-tier stand in the centre of the hall.

Trend Micro had the most prominent and well-manned pitch, Eset had the flashiest stand, while Symantec shelled out on two separate areas.

Virtualised security and consumeration of IT were among the key themes to emerge as exhibitors desperately attempted to pinpoint potential spending hotspots in what is a flat market.

Trend Micro's attendance of Infosec has been patchy in recent years, but EMEA managing director Tony Larks said the vendor needed to be here this year to tout its new wares. Its whole stand was dedicated to virtualised security.

"We went through a quiet time when there was nothing new to talk about," Larks said. "Now we have a story to tell. Virtualised security is a small part of our overall business, but it is something a lot of people are trying to get to grips with."

Larks admitted Trend's stand design was "minimalistic" but claimed larger spenders were missing the point.

"We've gone Zen, our stand only cost £25,000 to build," he said. "But people are coming to us with intent. If we can talk to the right 300 to 400 people, that's what we are here for."

According to figures supplied by the event organisers, 9,198 visitors showed up on Tuesday and Wednesday, excluding exhibitors and repeat visits.

Ian Kilpatrick, chairman of distributor Wick Hill, claimed Infosec's attendance had been hit by the two bank holiday weekends sandwiching the event, but still hailed the quality of leads.

Talking at 10.30 this morning, he predicted things would begin winding down by lunchtime.

"At this stage today we would normally have got eight leads, but we haven't even seen eight people," Kilpatrick said.

"But we had a half-million-pound order for SIP trunking [with vendors Gamma and Sipera] and the quality of people has been good. This show has got at least 3 to 4 years ahead of it as a good show."

Barrie Desmond, business development director at VADition, said the distributor had generated 250 leads for partners on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"There was an expectation that it would be a bit subdued because of the school holidays, but it has been buzzy," he said. "There has been a distinct lack of tyre kickers."

Desmond also claimed Infosec 2011 had a clear theme.

"If you walk around, there is a lot of talk of social web and consumerisation of IT," he said. "This is difficult for us as we have been talking about this for the last three years."

Giri Sivanesen, senior security consultant at Pentura, one of the few VARs to have its own stand, noticed another trend.

"What we are seeing at the show is a reflection of what is happening out there in the hacking world," he said. "There are a lot more hacks in the application layer and a lot of the vendors are talking about application-layer security. It costs 30 times as much money to deal with the fall out of a security breach than if you invest during the design phase."