Last week, the Tesrex team ventured out to the ExCel Centre once again to visit the IP Expo 2018. Every year the IP Expo never fails to surprise us with all the fun, interesting and revolutionary technologies that companies are working on. It’s a great insight into how the whole security industry is developing as a whole and you learn a great deal by visiting. If you didn’t get the chance to attend to this year, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here are a handful of things we observed at the event.

We started our day with a quick lap around the convention centre to get an overview of the vendors, products and general message being delivered by the major players, as well as spotting a few smaller stands that looked interesting. The first thing we noticed was that there was a strong presence from businesses offering highly-detailed network analytics and visibility. There were many products focused on automating logs and different ways to visualise data. What was interesting was the platforms these firms were demonstrating were primarily tools for detection rather than prevention, with the preventative or active elements of the software either never coming, or somewhere further down the line of their respective development roadmaps. There were countless examples of this and although variety in the platforms existed in some cases, most seemed to be accomplishing similar tasks.

If you work in this industry, you’ll likely already know that Cisco finalised their acquisition of Duo Security last week for $2.35bn. It was good to see that so soon after this acquisition, Duo Security had a large section adjoining Cisco’s large booth, allowing them to present their technology and engage with visitors to the Cisco stand. It seems that along with integrating Duo’s services into other Cisco platforms, Duo will (for the time being at least) continue as its own brand and remain available for companies interested in their secure single sign-on technology.

This year we noticed a shift in the atmosphere of the event compared to previous years and other events we’ve attended recently. Typically these events have a ‘salesy’ vibe to them, where those manning the booths are truly selling their products, actively looking for new customers and bringing forward their message as if they are pitching to potential customers. This year our interactions with the exhibitors was more relaxed, the engineers and sales teams were more keen on demonstrating products, answering questions and engaging in discussions on technology. Where in the last few years this kind of show was about lead generation by way of harnessing details through badge scans and engaging in the traditional sales processes, this year it was more about networking, engaging with other industry professionals from all fields and providing various thoughts and ideas to take back to the office for contemplation.

Brand and technology awareness appeared to be the main focus of most booths rather than lead generation.