It was my first time at this conference (Avangate’s second time) and I must say that I was expecting more people to come. The speakers and the presentations were interesting but this is not the only reason to come. I was asking two guys from SmartSoft (Bulgaria) why they came and the answer was very natural: “we need to recharge our batteries, we have so many things to do (like web optimization, marketing etc) and do not have the time to do it and the conference just confirms us that we still need to do it. And there’s the beer too ” … That sums up why a software developer should be there: to meet people in the same business, to learn something from the people that already did it and of course to drink beer.

My overall feedback is this:

The location: Very good
The speakers: Very good
The topics: Good (can be improved)
Number of participants: Normal

The one thing that’s missing this event is the advertising. My guess is that not too many people know about it. And it’s a shame, because the organizers are doing the best they can to get key speakers and offer actual subjects.

The event started with a happy note with a remix of John Lennon’s “Imagine”: “imagine there’s only one browser, it’s name is Firefox, and we’ll only have to build just one website …” … I don’t know the words, maybe someone can post it somewhere as I catched on my camera just the end (available on YouTube).

Other resources:

Pictures of the event (and more) at shareware-beach
Pictures of the event at Avangate

The organizers continued to setup the conference outside Moscow, like it was also in the spring, but this time it seemed to be a little too far from the city (20 km, Foresta Tropicana Hotel). Sure, the location was perfect for a nice quiet weekend with the family but not for a conference of such scale. Fresh air outside, green grass, some snow around the buildings. The conference is quite big, lots of participants, one of the biggest software communities I’ve seen. Having the presentations divided in two different buildings (one it was a big white tent, like a bubble, usually used probably for sports activities during the cold season) was not such a good idea for the sponsors. First day of conference seemed like nobody knew that there was also an exposition hall.

I have noticed an increased number of foreign participants which leads to the conclusion that the Russian software market is getting more attention each year. And for the right reason probably: the software developers are coming from all over Russia and neighboring CSI countries. There are people coming from more than 5000 km away, from the Irkutsk city near the lake Baikal. So having an on-the-fly translation service, like it was last year, it might have helped the foreigners to understand the Russian presentations.

The first two days were dedicated to Russian speakers and some of them seemed to have a really good speech. Me personally, I’ve found some interesting subjects that were worth listening (like the one Natalia Kaspersky had), but unfortunatelly, without a translation service I had to settle for the English presentations only.

On Sunday (3rd day) almost everything was in English. And of course, each eCommerce provider (our competitors) had 20-30 minutes to present something. I will not say any names, but it was a mixture of plain company advertising, technical things and nice reporting/statistics bars. Laurentiu kept the Avangate presentation about the difference between Resellers and Affiliates, to emphasize the Reseller role in a growing International Business (and of course the need for a PRM system e.g. myAvangate).

One new thing for this conference was the eCommerce providers panel, where Avangate, Plimus, Cleverbridge and DR were put face to face to answer general questions like “what are your commission rates” or “where did you get the company name” or “what should we expect from you next year” or “why are you better than the other ones”. I do not want to start a discussion about any of these subjects, I will write another topic someday.

Overall, the conference proved to be quite beneficial for us, even though the conference setup was at a lower level, compared with the old conferences. Meeting new people and sharing information with current partners was one of our accomplished goals. Vodka is still the Russian official drink, no beer at the official parties (barbecue and banquet). And even if we were in a hotel with a tropical flavor, there were no real fruits anywhere.

Some facts about the place:

- there is a plane in the middle of the resort

- the taxi from the Sheremetyevo airport to here should be around 2500 rubles (and not 4000 as most of the foreigners paid)

- you get to see the country side of Russia while driving to the resort

- the receptionists do not speak/understand english that well (we have arrived at around 1pm and they said that the room will be ready at 5pm; we asked for a room with a lake view and the girl at the reception made some phone calls and returned with the keys to our room, to be ready in 20 minutes – and not in several hours. I wonder what did she understood. Because the room didn’t had any lake view but quite opposite, the forest).

And some pictures I’ve shot:

I was expecting more people this year but until now (Saturday evening) I guess there weren’t more than 150 people (optimistically speaking). The location of the conference (Holiday Inn, Vinogradovo) is not very accessible because it is outside Moscow, there is no direct subway from/to town center. I spoke with someone from the organizers and he told me the reason this hotel was chosen: the participants will not leave early after and during the conference, because they cannot physically do it (or it is very inconvenient).

Anyway, I cannot tell anything about the presentations, because they’re all in Russian. Our presentation is scheduled for tomorrow at 10am and it will present a perspective of automatization in software sales, with a touch of our new product, myAvangate. And it will be in English. Probably the only one in the conference.

I will also post some pictures after the event, cause I don’t have a way to download it to a computer (no cable available).

Business networking is good at these kind of events and after being here twice last year, I get to know most of the participants. After each conference we end up with a few new shareware authors which are using Avangate services and it is a good time to make live presentations of our system.

Of course, DR is sponsoring today’s banquet, as they usually do. A good time to “steal” another one of their clients …

Did I mentioned we have a special offer for all ISDEF participants, including free myAvangate for one year and a special rate for Avangate eCommerce Platform? Now I did it!