On Tuesday, March 1, 2005, Jason Boyd and I showed up at the Orlando Convention Center nice and early. Our primary goal was to be available to answer technical questions for a poster session being presented by one of our customers - the world's largest pharmaceutical company - and being sponsored by Applied Biosystems. Almost a year ago the secure reporting solution Brian Jack and I designed as a SQL*LIMS customization for the customer, won best in show at AB's Inform 2004 in Monetary, California. With the win came the prize of presenting a poster session at Pittcon 2005. While the win technically went to our customer representative, several of us live outside of Orlando so being present to support the customer was a no-brainer.

Although I have lived in the Orlando area for several years, I had not yet been inside the Convention Center, so I was stunned by the size and attendance. It had everything from barcode scanners, specialized grips for analytical instruments, gas chromatographs and washing machines for glass laboratory equipment. Shoved roughly into the middle of the foray was what Jason and I christened "LIMS alley". Applied Biosystems, Labware, LabVantage and STARLIMS were only a few of the LIMS vendors in attendance. I found two exceptions to the "LAB alley" moniker. Thermo had their own Star Wars-like display (more on that later) near the center of the conference floor and Perkin-Elmer had a small display over on one side.

Thermo's display was inspiring. Placed on gigantic overhead trusses, Thermo had a 20-piece intelligent light show that displayed on the back of a semi-diaphanous banner of their name. If that was not enough, a laser-like, interactive display played on the floor as you entered. Stepping on areas of the display changed the picture, lighting, background and content. If that still wasn't enough, somewhere around 100 Thermo employees stood at individual Thermo booths, aggressively engaging people as they walked by. All of this reminded me of Circuit City at Christmas.

Having worked as a contractor to Applied Biosystems when they were Perkin-Elmer Nelson, I was also interested in seeing the PerkinElmer LIMS system, which, as I said, was off to one side of the building. Within less than a minute, the associate had identified our industry and sadly informed us that their LIMS system was not CFR part 11 compliant. I was surprised, thinking, "Then what good is it?" Of course, I quickly realized my own tunnel vision, that there are many uses for a LIMS outside of food and drugs. It is funny how when we focus on a goal intently the rest of the world becomes fuzzy.

Back to our quest: We made a beeline to the AB booth since we knew the most people there. Upon arriving, I was convinced we would have a good reception here since the first words out of the salesperson's mouth were, "It's good to finally meet you guys, your work is legendary!" We reacted as anyone would in these circumstances, I replied, "Aw, shucks." After catching up with some people we had met years past and a few we knew by reputation only, we asked if we could poke around on the SQL*LIMS v5 system they had on display. We were told that it was probably not a good idea, but we could come back later for a public demonstration. Their apologies were profuse, but we could not see the new version close up. No problem, the day was young.

Making our way toward the Thermo "Theatre Of Discovery", we watched a demo of the new Darwin LIMS system being given to what I presumed was a potential customer. On looks alone, Darwin wins the coolest GUI award. Sleek interface, simple commands, placing power at the fingertips, it seems that Darwin is a complete re-think of the LIMS interface and I was excited to ask some questions. Now, every associate asks the same questions, "Who are you? Who do you work for? What is your industry?", etc. I proudly told the associate that I am a LIMS consultant in the pharmaceutical industry and very interested in emerging systems and that Darwin looked great. Apparently, that wasn't the right answer; we were told this wasn't a good time but that someone would contact us. Huh? That's right, they don't do "that kind of thing" during conventions. I tried to clarify by telling him we just wanted to see the surface, basic sampling, specifications, that kind of thing. Nope, no demonstration for us.

A little put off but still eager to see some cool LIMS software, we headed over to the STARLIMS display. Word on the street was that they had several desktops showing the version 9 software, but if you were nice, they would let you see the new, unreleased version 10 software. So after standing around for a few minutes looking over other people's shoulders we were approached by one of the STARLIMS associates. Not only were we told we could not see their product, we were told that he didn't want us "getting that kind of information". I tried to reassure him that we just wanted to see version 9, you know, the off the shelf stuff. No dice. After a couple moments of awkward silence - during which time I considered which of the seven deadly sins I must have just committed - we said goodbye and left the STARLIMS booth.

We did get a good presentation of the updated LabWare software, which has new web functionality, but I'm convinced the only way we got into the demonstration was by hiding behind the customer we were accompanying. Being introduced as the LIMS design team for the largest pharmaceutical company in the world has advantages. And, for several minutes we sat anonymously at the back of a LabVantage public demonstration as they struggled with a bad network connection.

Our mission was a success: we visited every LIMS vendor at Pittcon. It didn't go the way I thought it would, but we enjoyed ourselves and got acquainted with people from Applied Biosystems, LabWare and Taratec. We were given a schlock bag, an apple, and walked away with the memory that being neither vendor nor customer puts one in an incomfortable position when attending an industry convention.