Looking for an event to attend where you get up-to-date information on the latest hardware and software? Try attending a user conference of a prospective vendor. You might be pleasantly surprised at how much you learn. Although typically set up for existing users of a company’s products, these events are often open to potential customers, sometimes for a small fee.

There’s a good reason to attend these events. They are probably the only place where attendees can see, first-hand, how well a product lives up to its marketing hype. Sure, there’s always the usual sales pitch for a company’s latest products worked into the demonstration—after all, an existing customer is more likely to buy a new product from his current vendor than a new one. But the overarching message at user conferences is how that company’s technology is working in the real world.

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