Storage Hits The Strip... Again

What is it with the storage industry and Las Vegas?

EMC is currently staging its EMC World event in the cavernous Mandalay Bay Convention Center, the first in a series of storage conferences to hit the Strip. Next month, Symantec Vision will be taking over the Venetian, followed by the massive VMworld show in September.

Cue groans of despair from many of the journalists in the press room here (including this one).

From the seemingly mile-long lines for taxis at the airport, to the searing heat (107 degrees yesterday) and the general thronging mass of humanity, Las Vegas is not my conference venue of choice.

Like a desert mirage, everything seems much closer than it really is in Sin City, making even the simplest journey an inevitable battle through crowds of gawping tourists and drunken frat boys.As one analyst described the city to me yesterday: Every time you go outside, you feel like you need to go back to your room for a shower.”

To make matters worse, the vast hotels and conference centers often require the navigation skills of Ferdinand Magellan if you want to get to a meeting or press conference on time.

Still, the world’s gambling mecca possesses an abundance of cheap accommodations (not to mention Blue Man Group), a fact which seems to have made it the venue of choice for the storage industry.

Also, it’s not as if anyone is boycotting the place. EMC has successfully lured more than 9000 people to its annual get-together this week, proving that Glitter Gulch still has plenty of pull with users and vendors (if not with me).

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