“This was the best show so far,” said Steve Gonzales, president of Gonzalez Marketing in Anchorage, who sponsored the expo.

More than 850 people attended the Sept. 30 show, held at the Egan Civic and Convention Center. The event featured the best and newest of technology available to businesses today.

“All the systems and IT techs in the state attended, and at one point we had six stages giving presentations simultaneously,” said Gonzales. “We got some great feedback about this show.”

A luncheon presentation held by Cisco Systems attracted 125 people. Jeff Cristee, vice president of Cisco Systems, spoke on Cisco's corporate positioning.

In addition to the more than 100 businesses represented, the show offered 42 different presentation of the eight-hour day.

Perhaps the most popular booth was the 3D TelePresence, shown by Right Systems Inc., that had a professional-looking woman on the screen who could interact with Expo attendees. The realism of the image was uncanny.

“Yes she is really there, but in Seattle,” said Rich De Brino director of Advanced Solutions for RSI. “The eye to eye contact and life-sized image are what draw people to this.”

The most popular technology of the day seemed to be voice over Internet protocol with several telecommunications companies trying to hawk their wares.

Structured Communications was one of the VOIP vendors showing a Shoretel IP PBX system that will operate from office to office on the Internet that integrates with a laptop or PC.

“The major point of this system is that it needs less wire, can be plugged into an existing network, you can add or delete extensions and names and populates across a whole network system,” said Jeff Champoux, a voice and mobility engineer for Structured Communications. “Wherever your LAN system stretches, you can stretch your PBX that far too.”