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Comdex Bans Bags From Show Floor
ckd writes: "CNET is reporting that COMDEX organizers have a new security policy--no bags except vendor supplied plastic bags will allowed on the show floor. "While on-site, you should CARRY A PHOTO ID (DRIVER'S LICENSE OR PASSPORT) ON YOU AT ALL TIMES." They want you to leave your laptop in your hotel room, too! Oh, and no cameras at the keynotes, either. But they haven't announced that they're planning to strip search people ... yet."
...because all the companies exhibiting at COMDEX are so broke they can't afford to give me new t-shirts. What a clever way to save money on promo items!
But, what am I supposed to wear for the next year!?! I guess my Penguin Computing T-shirts will have to be worn twice!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Apparently security coordinators at COMDEX read slashdot. They especially noted the satirical remarks regarding: "What next, strip searches?".
Security personal were noted as saying, "Thats a great idea!" While some were skeptical, others went so far as to improve on the now open source communities ideas. Later, a unanimous decision yeilded on implementing open source specifications for strip searches with body cavity investigations. These would later be utilized at the convention.
COMDEX Security Marshals have decided to fully develope this open source concept and protocals. They are currently in talks with several venture capitalists to fund a new e-commerce web site. No further details were provided at the time of announcement.
Additionaly it should be noted that have been talks concerning a fork in the now ongoing works. One security personal was quite upset with the current implementation.
"I just don't like limiting myself to one hand. Power user's should be able to use two if they really want."
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Now we just have to pray that nobody carries a bomb under their coat, or a gun in their pocket, or anthrax in a plastic baggie, or a Potential Enemy Neutralizer in their shirt pocket, or a pointy steel-toed boot...
Come to think of it, I won't feel safe until everyone is naked.
Save me, O Comdex, from the evil, evil terrorists!
You don't need to be Kreskin to predict Comdex's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Comdex faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Comdex because Comdex is dying. Things are looking very bad for Comdex. As many of us are already aware, Comdex continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Famed Comdex speaker Spencer F. Katt states that there are 7000 visitors to Comdex. How many visitors to Networld/Interop are there? Let's see. The number of Comdex versus Networld/Interop posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Networld/Interop visitors. LinuxWorld posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Networld/Interop posts. Therefore there are about 700 visitors to LinuxWorld. A recent article put Windows World at about 80 percent of the trade show market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Windows World visitors. This is consistent with the number of Windows World Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Comdex taxi lines, abysmal attendance and so on, The Interface Group went out of business and was taken over by Softbank who run other troubled trade shows. Now Softbank is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Comdex has steadily declined in market share. Comdex is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Comdex is to survive at all it will be among trade show hobbyists, dabblers, and dilettantes. Comdex continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Comdex is dead.
sulli
RTFJ.
I use Microsoft Passport, it's a tech show afterall no?, MS passport is the Most Secure Thing available, Microsoft told us you guys do support latest technologies that big corporations shove at us, no? yeah... it's your sponsors....what? sorry, but it's in my laptop that you didn't want me to bring in at the entrance.
Joking aside, I have one word for comdex since a few years... unorganized computer flea market... And it could be so much more, computers did take off since 5 years with the internet and all that, why did Comdex go completely the opposite direction?
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Guard: Sorry no bags!
Me: It's not a bag it's a case.
Guard: No laptops. No cases. No kidding.
Me: I left the laptop at home.
Guard: What's in the "case" then?
Me: Stuff. You know. My camera, PDA, cell phone, GPS, DriveWallet, GameBoy, portable CD player, a MP3 player, this runs a wireless Linux server (holding up a SBC with a short antennae) which is grabbing frames from the camera on my hat.
Guard (holding hand on head): Oh, just go. NEXT!!!
Guard: Sorry no bags!
Next me: It's not a bag, it's a valise.
I'll even voulenteer to make very, very certain that none of the booth babes are smuggling in anything even remotely dangerous. Yup, I'll be quite thorough; you never know what they might be hiding in those tight little outfits...
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
I used to love COMDEX. I worked for a large Fortune 500 company, and I would always lie about how many purchasing decisions/budgets I had influence over. Everyone thought I was crazy and asking for new spam, but they didn't know about procmail. They were only marketing guys, after all. But when the other marketing guys who were aiming to market at me saw my membership stuff, I could weasel my way into plenty of free stuff.
The best meat-space schwag I ever got was getting into the last Digital party. Picture a huge hall, about 100 people, two bands, and about every possible type of food or drink you can imagine. And me and my brother in Chuck Taylors and t-shirts on a full-blown jag. I swear we were the only ones not in $5000 suits. It was very exclusive for some reason. The AMD party was packed. This place not so much. But they put on quite a show.
They had these five girls in gold catsuits and black wigs marching around. Like five identical people. I can't remember if the Intel bunny suit guys were out then (I think this was 97, but I'm not sure), although I was reminded of them after thinking about it later. Anyway, the sales weenies would sic these women on the hardcases who were waffling on some high-pressure sales thing. The girls would grab these oddball Arab dudes (or whomever was on the hook) and parade them about for a couple minutes and them rub them around the room and back to their chair. I'm not sure what it was supposed to do, but it didn't work on me and my brother, since we would probably have only bought what wasn't exactly for sale. It was like being on a different planet. You talk them up enough and there's almost no limit to the free shit you'll get.
My brother demanding that a Director of Sales something or other get him a "prime rib and a bottle of Chivas" or he would "start talking to Compaq and Intel" was particularly amusing. Especially since Digital was sold to Compaq not long after.
And all I have to show for it now is an Alpha t-shirt which says "Feed the Need" on the front and has some probably long-dead proc on the back. Feed it indeed. Those were the days...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Now it's time for all those who wrote "Jedi knight" in their census forms to practice their "This are not the bags you're looking for".
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu