One of the great things about my job is the opportunity it offers me to meet exciting people.  One such example is Jason Huggett, a government employee and contractor who understands the power Cobia offers.  I met Jason face to face at Linuxfest Northwest last month and once I realized his enthusiasm for Cobia, I invited him to join the Cobia team at Interop this year. We'll be flying him from his home in Washington to Las Vegas next week to man the Cobia booth during the day and join us for all the events at night.  Jason will also be appearing on the next episode of the Cobia Community Podcast live from the show room floor!

Here's a quote from Jason: 

I've worked for federal and state government agencies most of my career, the last six of which have been in IT/Security. Recently I have been doing more and more private consulting which appeals to me due to the variety of obsticles you encounter. That's one of the reasons I began exploring Cobia. As time goes on and development continues, Cobia is going to solve a vast amount of problems for small to medium size businesses. Anymore, being able to implement a secure network infrastructure without spending huge dollars on equipment or consultants really can determine whether or not that business will survive.

Jason's constantly working with business for whom the word 'budget' isn't an abstract, it's a survival mechanism.  Every penny spent has to come from somewhere, and when the sudden need for a firewall comes up, many of those businesses just don't have the resources to pick up an appliance firewall.  The cost savings of using free software like Cobia on off-the-shelf software is exactly what the SMB market is looking for, something that can help assure the survival of a business.  

I'll be talking about another Cobia user who'll be joining us at Interop, Ben Weir, in the next couple of days.  I'm really looking forward to spending time with people who see the possibilities of Cobia, people who are as excited about it as I am.