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Apple Cancels Apple Expo 2001
Ziploc writes: "Apple today announced the cancellation of Apple Expo 2001, which was scheduled to take place at Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles, from September 26th to 30th, 2001.
See the press release here."
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Steve Jobs promised "No new hardware at Expo Paris."
Looks like he'll be keeping his promise!
Turns out there actually won't be any new products announced at Apple Expo this year.
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
Apple will also be donating an iBook to each of these families with children.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
The expo starts on the 26th, 15 days after the attacks on the WTC. Apple has to move a lot of key personnel from Apple USA to Paris for the expo, personnel which are not always American citizens and some are quite likely "Arab looking".
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
I'd bet that it was because there would be logistics problems right now with the backlog of flights steming from last weeks events.
On one hand, I sympathize with security concerns. This is a frightening time. On the other hand, is a congregation of nerds in Paris really much of a target? If the terrorists were going after intellectuals, they could have crashed into harvard or MIT (15 minutes into their flight from boston). If they want to damage the economy, damaging such a narrow (1 company+peripheral manufacturers) target wouldn't be nearly effective as hitting, for instance, the Stock exchange. It's like my school, where janitors were posted to make sure nobody bombed. Seems like a bit of paranoia to me, but on the other hand Apple didn't have much to say.
My Karma is so good, I'm the Dalai Lama...or something.
Apple was not happy with the press ranting about "no new products".
The show would have been very weak, with another Jobs keynote just about the Mac OS X upgrade.
Now the terror threat comes in very handy to cancel the fiasco show.
-- bmp System Support - Vienna, Austria
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh.
Good work back in the 70's and 80's, but - what have you done for us lately? ;-)
(Yes, that was a joke. When a dual G5 hit's the shelves with MacOS 10.1, I'm probably buying one!)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
After all, they don't have many left as it is...
Strange, they are the only computercompany which didn't made a loss last quarter.
And the iBook and G4 ti is selling like crazy..
Typical anti Apple FUD as always.
but as much as I'd like to see things continue like normal, it is probably wise to cancel events such as these for a short time. Air travel has suffered a horrific blow that has made many unsure of the safety of air travel. I hate to see the world shut down over this but some things should be put on hold for a little while.
Apple really needs to refocus and release tech. info on their older systems anyhow. I've been fighting for 2 years to get driver-level specs for a Powerbook 1400, and have yet to recieve anything but a runaround. MacOS X based on a BSD core is pretty cool, but Apple just like IBM-clones need a choice. BeOS comes close, but neither of these will run on my PB. I'd hate to think I'd wasted my money.
Like Compaq, Toshiba, Dell and some other company's.
I have a five year old Pentium 90 laptop with 8 mb and Windows XP won't install on it.
Yeesh, get a live.
The powerbook 1400 is almost 5 years old.
And it isn't a PCI machine.
Snagged from Macnn.com:
Message from Steve
From: Steve Jobs
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 07:12:15 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Message from Steve
Team,
Last week's devastating and tragic events have touched everyone at
Apple. We are all grieving for the victims and their families.
Thankfully, no Apple team members were among them. I know many of
you have taken time to support various relief efforts, give blood,
and support those around you. We all appreciate your extra efforts
to do so.
I want to let you know that Apple is donating one million dollars to
the families of the firefighters, police and other emergency
response personnel who lost their lives, through the American Red
Cross Disaster Relief Fund. In addition, we will donate one iBook to
each of these families with children this holiday season.
Also, today we are announcing the cancellation of Apple Expo 2001,
which was scheduled to take place in Paris on September 26-30. We
are very sorry to disappoint our customers and developers, but their
safety must be our primary concern at this time. Apple is a very
visible American company, and having a highly publicized event at
this time would be irresponsible.
We are also taking extra precautions to insure our safety. Apple
security will remain on heightened alert at all our facilities
around the world for the foreseeable future. Please immediately
report any suspicious events or personnel to security.
It's going to take time for the world to return to "normal", and
some things will never return to the way they were. The next few
months may be rocky. Please take the time you need for your
families, and please lean on one another. Together, we will all get
through this.
I want to commend everyone for their efforts throughout this
difficult time. As always, I am very proud of this team.
Steve
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
I forget what the event was, but numerous luminaries in the US film business (most memorably Sylvester Stallone, since it was the Rambo era) refused to go to Cannes.
--
E_NOSIG
Terrorists might view Apple as a target because of that.
The WTC didn't house many (if any) government offices, they were businesses.
Personally, I also think it's a little too reactionary; they should just beef up security and go on with the show.
There was a report on Marketplace on Friday about how many organizations within the US are cancelling their conventions because of the tragedy. The financial impact on the tourism industry of those cities is in the tens of millions of dollars. Think about it, if a convention has 30,000 people, and each person spends an average of $300 apiece on food, lodging, and such, then the loss of that one convention would mean the loss of $9 mil. in revenue.
Safety? What big name terrorist is going to hit a computer company convention? Sure they're pretty well known, but hardly a good target for destroying the Western world's economy or confidence. The number of attractive destruction targets that come ahead of Apple Expo number in the thousands. Why, even in Paris, I'd think there are more than a few famous landmarks that would be well publicized if they were to get destroyed. Apple Expo getting bombed would make front page news maybe, and only for one day.
If anything, we should be promoting these kind of event, not just to show that our lives continue on despite the terrorists attempts to change them, but also to help bolster the airline industry. If things don't pick up quickly, even with the gov't bailout, several of the majors may go down this year.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Info here. It was going to be here in DC next week, and I imagine most of the attendees were flying into National Airport, which is closed indefinitely.
Best Slashdot Co
Apple is slowly dying anyway.
Well, duh! What did they expect when they decided to use BSD?
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
They didn't predict anything for MacWorld Paris, and it looks like they were right!!!
This isn't about him; he has a Gulfstream V he would have used to fly to the expo.
I predict a lot of large corporations are going to consider following his lead in the very near future.
D
We're already in the midst of one jihad, don't get another one started... :-P
As one of the Anonymous masses mentioned above, this is not merely an issue of fearing potential attack upon the expo itself. Each of these expos has 100+ exhibitors, all of whom need goods transported, on time, safely, and, worse, in this case, across international borders. This may be now, and for the next few weeks both more difficult, and probably more expensive.
Many companies nation, and even world-wide have issued directives stating that 'no one will be forced to fly'. Can you blame them for cancelling an event that may have been plagued by the resultant no-shows of the exhibitors? Business-wise it makes sense, and then, given that they are a prominent American corporation, the over-arching safety concern makes it a very sound decision indeed.
I'm not sure where you get that impression? One of the first world leaders to speak out in support of the United States was the French Prime Minister.
I would confidently say that Apple had no political angle on this. I would suspect that Apple is primarily concerned about the logistics of people travelling all over the world to attend the conference. In addition, a sparcely attended event would only further aggrivate economic troubles that Apple will be facing from this tragedy. Like it or not, the terrorism has taken the wind out our sails for a little bit. I'm sure we will all get along with life once a critical mass of society feels normal again. That time hasn't been reached yet.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
My guess: nuclear bomb on a boat in NYC's harbor. You read it here first.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
1. There's no need to clear any sort of customs. The more you move the bomb, the more people might see it.
2. A large cloud of radioactive steam will be created, killing millions more from radiation poisoning and cancer.
3. It's a terror attack. Americans are now scared of planes. A boat-based nuke will make American scared of boats. Slowly, the US cuts itself off from the world, which is what Bin Laden and his ilk wants.
Personally, I think we're doomed to lose this battle because we aren't willing to be nearly as evil as our enemy. It wasn't always like this. As mentioned in an editoral in the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41 213-2001Sep16.html), the US killed 900,000 Japanese civilians (not including Hiroshima and Nagasaki!) in the closing months of WWII. Today, we won't do that, even though the stakes are far higher today than they were against a Japan that was isolated, out of fuel, and starving.
Meanwhile, our enemy hides among civilians, and has no qualms about using anything as a weapon. We have qualms about killing the civilians they surround themselves with. In short, we're fucked. Even after we are nuked and gassed and exposed to smallpox and anthrax, we won't do what's necessary to save our civilization against the Hordes.
Ah well, it was a good civilization while it lasted.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
I can't think of any reason not to release specs on legacy products though.
One easy reason: Apple makes most of its money on hardware sales. They don't want you to keep your old stuff running; they want you to replace it with a new Mac instead.
It would be nice if they released all of their discarded software as public source, but hiring someone to sort through the old code files and tech notes costs money that a tech biz is hard to afford in these lean times. Maybe someone could convince Jordan Hubbard to let them do it as a volunteer?
Either way, the US can't win unless we're willing to kill about a billion people first. We're not. We'll lose.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Really? Then Islamic fanatics must be losing their nerve; the wars of conquest which spread Islam killed more, (pro-rated to the current world population).
I don't think the Muslim fundamentalists will stop until every Christian and Jew (and non-fanatical Muslim) on the planet is dead. What they may not realize is that the world will be destroyed by the US response to these terror attacks. Or perhaps they do realize, and want to destroy us all. I dunno.
But if you're right, should you wait for them, or just kill yourself now? Better play it safe. Do it now.
We live to say NO to death. Dying for a cause is easy. Living for one is hard.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
US Airliners are safer now then they have been in a long time thanks to beefed up US airport security. Noone has even made a peep that I've heard of a threatening move towards france.
This is the wierdest PR excuse for a chnage of direction I've ever heard. Can ANYONE make sense of it for me??
Frankly the US Airliens need the business, if Apple really was concerned with the fall out from this attack I'd thnk they'd want to help promote intercontinental flight...
I don't think "let's write something to put on our web site, and get one of the graphics guys to make a pretty logo with an American flag or something, so everyone on Slashdot will see how much we care" was the first thing that came to their mind. I think they were busy watching CNN. I know I was. When I did go to Apple's Web site, I was very impressed that they had replaced their entire front page.
Snapshots from around the Web on 9/14/01
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
After all, they don't have many left as it is...
That's right, and they certainly can't afford to give away ONE MILLION DOLLARS and a truckload of laptop computers.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Let's say you're a billion dollar corporation who's just seen a huge tragedy happen in your home country possibly with several employees directly related to people involved in the tragedy. Are you going to force them to hope on a plane to some expo? Besides that, are you going to ask a bunch of other corporations to do the exact same thing? You won't be a billion dollar corporation for long with that sort of insensitive bullshit happening. It's also pretty ludicrous to try to hae a big international expo at the same time as a major downsizing in the worldwide travel market.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
That's right. The numbers prove that it's safer. Doesn't mean that people will believe it though. Air travel accidents get promoted by the media to an extreme point. People typically believe what the media tells them. If they tell them that violence in schools is increasing, they'll believe them even though the numbers prove that to be an absolute crock of shit--it's been decreasing for decades. A car wreck on the news is nothing; people don't even bat an eye. A plane crash is big news; people sit up and take notice then. Yes, air travel is safer in reality. It's not safer in the minds of the majority people though.