PDC05: Exhibitor reflections

There were a number of interesting exhibitors at the PDC this year.  Beyond the swag, I found a few interesting products here and there.  Here are a few that leap to mind:

• AMD - The booth was okay, but was mostly impressed with their gaming machines setup in the game room for playing Far Cry. 
• APress - learned that they offer technical eBooks in addition to their traditional paperback books.
• Axosoft - My company currently uses a product called "Remedy" as well as a one or two other low-end bug-tracking apps.  This was my first time to see their "OnTime" application.  Overall it looked very similar, but definitely full-featured.  However, their story was a bit disappointing in the Visual Studio integration arena.  Once this area matures it could be a really good tool.
• Computer Associates (CA) - I picked up a copy of their Internet Security Suite which has a nice collection of anti-spyware tools in addition to their standard virus protection.  Also, I hadnt realized that they own Erwin data modeling tools, as well as several enterprise management tools.
• Infragistics - Their controls continue to improve and impress.  I need to play around with their demo CD a bit, but will definitely consider them in future projects.
• Phidgets - By far the coolest demos were the robot arms and such at the Coding4Fun area.  The info on the Phidgets processor boards and servo-kits definitely got my creative juices flowing.  Now I just need some time to go play....

I didnt spend any time at the Intel booth, but it seemed to be hoppin most of the time.  Overall at the PDC, the swag-to-info ratio was leaning much further towards the swag, but there were moments especially with things like the 3D Plotter machine carving-out cars, the MS Coding4Fun robot, and other attractions that I spent more than a passing glance at the exhibits.   Overall not a bad display...although this was my first PDC, so I would be interested to hear some comparisons from years past.