Below are a few of these take-aways and a few comments from email correspondence.

We actually have more than 15 pages of such "testimonials". 
(How do you choose what to publish??)

Please call the IWPC for the complete list.

"T-Mobile hosted an IWPC meeting in September 2004 addressing the topic of reducing Opex of Base Station systems. The emphasis was of reducing Opex for the Operator. As host I was able to propose this topic which is close to our heart and judging by the comments of other Operators, we're not alone.

The conference was attended by a wide range of organizations which represented the full supply chain, with some talking about improved LD-MOS technologies and antenna designs, to landlord resistance of new cell sites.

I believe it was useful for the whole supply chain to gather an understanding of the issues facing all.

Generally we as an Operator deal mostly with major infrastructure suppliers and not with component suppliers. In an environment where we are constantly seeking year on year cost reductions, sometimes new hardware innovations are used by suppliers to maintain their margins and these innovations are invisible to us. Meeting with the whole supply chain was useful in that I was left with an impression of a vast amount of exciting technologies being developed.

IWPC organization and administration was efficient and even as host, a minimal amount of my effort was needed.

As a direct result of the conference we are following up on a number of items which could help us with our aggressive Opex targets."
(email correspondence)

T-Mobile

Head of RaN Platform Design

(workshop host)

"Hosting and participating with the IWPC E-Band development conference was a pleasure and valuable experience. 

It was great to have open dialog between equipment developers, components supply chain and operators who will deploy and operate E-Band wireless fiber systems. I felt it was especially valuable for all parties to engage in discussing the many networking application possible and getting a consolidate vision of the real potential for these products. Openness, mutual respect and dialog between equipment / technology companies and operators was clearly a benefit for all attendee's. Even when Q&A didn't produce the desired answer it was important that reasonable expectation boundaries where Established between suppliers and operator's in advance of fielding and testing first deployments of E-Band systems. 

Hats-off to Don and Rene, who kept a tight schedule, robust agenda and sparked leading questions to all participates and presenters. 

Sprint gained valuable information about E-Band technology and established equipment developer relationships to move forward with this new technology option. 

Thanks Don, Rene and IWPC members for a great experience!"
(email correspondence)

Sprint

Director Access Technology

(workshop host)

"O2 hosted an IWPC meeting in November 2003 addressing the topic of upgradeable base-stations. From my perspective there were several benefits we had as a host, and the workshop represented good value.

As host we were able to tailor the agenda to address the topics of most interest to O2, and we assisted IWPC in attracting a good representation of delegates. The result was a conference which directly tackled issues relevant to O2, with a full range of relevant industry inputs. This is in contrast with many commercial conferences, where typically the agenda can become too broad, and where organizers rely on an open call for papers rather than a targeted set of presentations. We were also able to influence the syndicate breakout topics to focus on areas of most interest to us.

The IWPC membership is very broad across all aspects of the supply food chain for mobile. Whilst we regularly have reviews with our major vendors and their suppliers, it is not easy to keep in touch with the wide range of subsystem and component suppliers. Understanding their technology roadmap and seeing the potential future technologies at a component level is valuable in helping us to assessing our major vendors' product plans. The IWPC workshop gave us ready access to the views across the supply chain, which would be difficult and time consuming to access via dialogues with individual companies

O2 hosted a visit to our HQ and network management centre. This was useful to emphasize the real issues and priorities facing a network operator.

Hosting near to our own offices allowed us to have additional delegates without travel cost overheads.

IWPC organization and administration was effective and helpful. There were no additional costs or administrative efforts required from O2 in volunteering to host the workshop."
(email correspondence)

O2

Head of Standards

(workshop host)

"Varsha, Joe and I think that the workshop went extremely well, we made contacts with many people, we conveyed our needs and I think suppliers at all level understand our need, more important that we are serious in deploying these short range sensors in medium time frame (automotive time frame, of course).

We also would like to thank you for organizing the meeting, it is not easy to get so many diverse people in one location and handle all the logistics."

(email correspondence)

General Motors

General Motors R&D and Strategic Planning

(workshop host)

"Thanks again for all your efforts in pulling together last weeks marathon activity.

As we discussed off line it was hard work for me so I have no doubts it was much harder for you folks.

I was uncertain coming to my first set of IWPC meetings, how well it would work out and how good a use of time it would be.

Overall I cannot fault organization, structure, venue.

My conclusion on IWPC concept overall and this event is very positive.

I enjoyed the whole week, and will support in the future. It was definitely good use of my time. The content was largely interesting and in places highly valuable. The mix of the value/supply chain in one room was without doubt the major value especially the ability to meet and talk offline and the potential follow up."

(email correspondence)

MMIC Solutions

CEO

"This IWPC workshop was a first for me. I very much appreciated the open and earnest discussions between all the players in the value chain present at the meeting: from the satellite operators all the way to the IC level component manufacturers.

These workshops are indeed very useful to bridge the knowledge gap, by encouraging close-quarters discussions amongst the participants. I certainly got a good update on where the various technology leaders stand today, and on what we might imagine possible in the near future. My hats-off to the organizers for creating an atmosphere of open & constructive discussion, very rarely found in regular industry conferences".
(email correspondence)

SKYLOGIC - A Eutelsat Company

Executive Director & Member of the Board

"I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for organizing the last IWPC [workshop, April 2005 in Detroit].  It helped us (GM) work on focusing our own vision for V-V [vehicle to vehicle], V-I [vehicle to infrastructure], and telematics.  I also got a chance to make quite a few connections that will be valuable to me as we work toward future products."
(email correspondence)

General Motors

Head - Electrical Controls Integration Lab

"Well, what can I say. It is not often a product lives up to all the hype and that's even more impressive when the products appear to give far more than it takes.

My team has attended the last 2 workshops, Celestica and PA's and found the experience rewarding and most importantly a good use of their time."
(email correspondence)

Anaren Microwave Inc

Corporate Business Development Manager

“Honestly, my opinion is that the meetings are always good.  One for networking.  Two for alliances.  Three to set expectations.  Four to learn something about what is happening or about to happen.  Don and Rene set it up so the entire food chain is present in one room to discuss all the issues and understand why certain things do or don't happen.  My summary and I don't mind writing it with Rene and Don attached because it's my honest opinion.  I won't support something I don't believe in.”
(email correspondence)

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications Inc.

CTO Office

"You have created one of the most innovative ways of capturing the voice of the customer in an industry. I can tell you that it is going to cost us [his new company] much much more than 10K per year to get this type of info. While your organization would only be one of my tools, in hindsight, it is perhaps the best valued tool in terms of industry knowledge one can get."
(email correspondence)

Former IWPC Member

Now the Vice President of Global Marketing of another company (unrelated to the wireless industry)

"The $10 K per year I spent for IWPC membership for the MCM [Micro Circuit Materials] business was one of the best investments I made with DuPont's money over my career with DuPont  As you might understand I have spent my share of DuPont's money on market research reports, courses and consultants in the last 30 years.

Looking at the direct benefit of IWPC membership (the opportunity to meet OEM decision makers and hear about their needs first hand)  IWPC was and continues to be an outstanding investment."

(email correspondence)

DuPont Microcircuit Materials

Marketing Manager

“I do believe, I have not seen any other organization looking at the value chain.  And I do believe formats like this are going to give a lot of value to the people because it is giving a lot of good perspective.”

Alvarion

AVP Business Development

“Well I always come here hoping that I’ll learn something new technically, which I always do.”

Arlon

Director, New Business Development

“When I came over here to the conference, I didn’t know what to expect.  So after the two days, basically what I can say is the experience of all the different opinions and technologies and different views about the technologies.  I liked this a lot.”

Kathrein

Engineering Manager

“And I really enjoy getting a lot of the feedback from the phone manufacturer, just to get that first hand information.  Even at the level that we did was valuable.  And I definitely welcome us getting together here again to do a little more of that investigation and sharing of information.  And then I think I’ve met a lot of good people and made some contacts.  And I really enjoyed talking with a lot of you today.”

RF Micro Devices

Design and Development

“If there are anymore optoelectronic millimeterwave packaging workshops in the future, I will highly recommend to our millimeterwave design expert to participate.”

Harris Corp.

Chief Engineer