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Apple Macworld Snub a "negotiating tactic"
Nick dePlume writes "Apple Computer's decision to not endorse the move of the east coast Macworld Expo convention from New York to Boston is a "negotiating tactic," albeit a shockingly public one, reports Think Secret. Sources believe Apple had firmly endorsed the move, which was announced today."
No doubt people will claim that this is Steve Jobs being mercurial.
But to be honest, I'm surprised-- I would think Apple would welcome the move to Boston, especially given that it is supposed to make the show cheaper for exhibiters. I don't really think that Apple has a real strategic advantage of having MacWorld in NYC-- after all Boston is less than a days drive away, and is also a big hub of computing types.
Furthermore, if what they really want is to be in NYC, why threaten to boycott NYC 2003?
One thing thats perplexed me is that Think Secret talks about a press release from Apple, but I have not been able to find it.
Is this really not a public issue- and merely something thats gone on in the back rooms of negotiating that someone (possible IDG) decided to make public to make Apple look bad? OR was I just poor at finding the release from Apple? A reference to Apple actual statement would be valuable (think secret mentions it but doesn't link to it.)
To be honest, one thing thats odd about the situation is that I would expect the show to be apples show-- not Macworlds. Or put another way, this is the kind of thing that Apple would create themselves and then hire a company like IDG to manage for them-- rather than something that Apple will likely want to have owned (and the profits going to) an outside entity (Which I believe is the people behind the Macworld magazine.)
Since Apple is a niche market, what they may really want is their own show-- or enough control that this show serves their marketing needs. It doesn't seem like it would be viable to have two major competing shows.
Furthermore, these shows are really a profitable thing, even after paying the convention center and the union guys, the organizers clear a lot of cash. And they are making that cash based on the fact that Apple will have major announcements-- and indirectly, companies will exhibit there because of Apple's presence.
When I was looking at MWSF 2003 booth space, it looked like not much of the show had sold out, so the recession may well be changing the economics of the situation.
This may be the beginning of a reshuffling that has the shows moved to different times of the year (Possibly fall and spring) to better suit sales cycles (the christmas rush is more important than back to school, so MW in the summer may be bad timing.) We may end up with Macworld going away and Apple Expos replacing it... its not clear whether that would be better or worse.
Apple runs an excellent show for WWDC, but then, that's a much smaller affair.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Ad Campaign Misfires:
Apple did pick up the MS switch campain story. Strikes me as rather unusual Apple to tease others like that....