TAIT's annual expo COM.IT 2009 got off to a roaring start today. With 95 leading IT companies exhibiting at the expo and expected visitors numbers of visitors around 5,000, COM.IT promises to be the biggest channel event this year.
The expo was inaugurated today at MMRDA Ground in Mumbai. Leading dignitaries—Patrick Mathias, VP, Cisco; Rakesh Bakshi, Legal Head, Microsoft India; Kensaku Konishi, President, Canon India; Mohit Anand, Country Manager, Belkin; Mukesh Gupta, Country Head, AOC; Rajesh Gupta, Director, Intel; and Zia Saquip, Executive Director, CDAC—light the lamp.
Welcoming guests at the inauguration, Ketan Patel, President, TAIT said, "Even in a difficult year, TAIT has executed a big event. It goes to show the growing importance of COM.IT. I would like to thank all sponsors and exhibitors for supporting the expo."
In his welcome note, Patel also highlighted the challenges and opportunities facing channels. "It’s been a tough 18 months. But owing to the bad economic condition, many resellers realized that to sustain business they need to differentiate. The economic crisis also taught us the importance of quality sales and marketing skills.”
Canon’s Konishi said that events like COM.IT help in raising awareness about technology and create broader and newer markets.
Highlighting the agenda of the COM.IT Conference, which is an integral part of the expo, Rushabh Shah, Director, TAIT said, "This year's conference focuses on emerging technologies that present great opportunities to resellers and also on how well technologies need to be marketed. New technologies are emerging and customer buying patterns are transforming. Channels need to adopt new marketing tools and sales approaches to leverage new opportunities and hence the program has been formulated keeping these two aspects in mind."
While the COM-IT expo is scheduled from December 10 to 12, the conference program is scheduled for today and tomorrow.