Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the its-not-about-money-its-about-stupid dept.
jgeelan writes "That's the verdict, anyhow, just posted on its main page by SYS-CON Media." Let's be realistic, does anything important really ever
happen at COMDEX? The only thing I've ever got out of attending COMDEX is a
horrible flu.
It's immortal. I'm still getting mail (some legit, but some borderline-spam) from the 1999 LinuxWorld. Tho it's not a bad trade for the huge swag I came home with:)
does anything important really ever happen at COMDEX?
wasn't the Amiga 1000 introduced at COMDEX 1985?
Feeling a Little Bitter?
by
CBNobi
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
After all, the site has the headline: "COMDEX Opens with Largest Drop in Attendance Ever ! Attendance Down More Than 50% from Two Years Ago... The Show Organizer May File for Bankruptcy Protection"
then..
"COMDEX Refuses to Issue "Press Badge" to SYS-CON Media"
Coincidence? Probably.
Re:Feeling a Little Bitter?
by
quintessent
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
So, where did the Slashdot poster get the phrase "smallest attendance ever" from? I didn't see that posted on SYS-CON. Was the poster smoking the carpet? Since when does "largest drop" mean "smallest ever"?
It almost sounds like President Clinton and others talking about "paying off the deficit."
AMD-apple link
by
selderrr
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
on the Apple rumours sites (forums.appleinsider.com, appleturns.com, www.mosr.com, www.macrumours.com,...) there's a whole lot of babling going on anout AMD going in bed with Apple. Either for a hammer version of OSX, or AMD fabbing the next PPC...
Prolly just nonsense, but exciting anyway..maybe..
AMD worships the ground Microsoft walks on. Apple wants to crush Microsoft's skull (the way a Jaguar kills).
Not a real good basis for a partnership.
No, Apple's new processor, the thousand year dragon king, will come from the guardian god of the Big Blue sky. He will have his own reasons for hating Microsoft, and will be happy to help Apple.
On December 14, 1996, Mothra resurrected a charred Apple sapling ("Mosura" 1996). On December 14, 2001, Mothra returned to see its fruit ("Gojira, Mosura, Kingu Ghidora: Daikaiju Soukougeki"). OS X Jaguar: truly the Apple of Mothra's Aqua eye.
Eh? Am I missing something here?
by
Dr+Thrustgood
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I always thought that, in computing at least, everything's *meant* to get smaller...
Re:Eh? Am I missing something here?
by
Cruciform
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Comdex: Computer Trade Show and Dwarf Tossing Championship:)
good chance to get work done
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 4, Funny
When my boss is away to Comdex, it's an excellent time of unhindered progress -- I go to work and get some work done!!!. When everyone's in town, all we ever do is sit in 5t00p1d m33t1ng5 all day long. I wish there were more than one Comdex a year.
Things I learned at Comdex
by
91degrees
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
1. Networking was going to be big
2. Networking was going to be overvalued
3. The bubble was about to burst.
Don't know about the rest of you, but I made over $2 million just through going to Comdex. I think this was money well spent.
I've also learned that the business people know as little as the rest of us about where things are going. Thir guesses are never right. They might make some good guesses about what market will do well, but its almost always for the wrong reasons.
Exhibitions in the time of the Internet
by
jmerelo
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Well, at least in Comdex you get the chance to smell, weigh, shake, and look under the things that are available mostly anywhere in the web. But the plain truth is that attedance to trade fairs is going down anywhere; the same happened in SIMO, the spanish Comdex (if there's such a thing), which happened a short while ago. Product presentations are mainly done outside them, so it does not make a lot of sense to go to a trade fair to see booth after booth of computers, laptops, palmtops or whatever is the rage that year.
I went to COMDEX last year in the hopes of finding what everyone REALLY wants from COMDEX. T-Shirts.
My boss and I wandered the aisles, looking at new technology vendors (who happened to be giving away shirts).
We came across one friendly looking lady, with at least 7 BOXES of T-Shirts. HEAVEN! I proceed to lay down the geek-speak about how her product would fit into our organization, and I was getting a fairly good response. I felt the T-Shirt grab was "in the bag", so I asked for one.
She looked right at me, smiled, and pointed to the table: "Have a bendy!" Looking at the table, I saw the prize for all of my effort. A wire, wrapped in a plastic/rubber substance. Basically, the prize was as complete of a waste of time as my conversation had been.
To this day, whenever my boss talkes about getting screwed over by someone, he uses the phrase "Have a bendy!"
I think they should merge Comdex and CES. So much shows up at CES (consumer electronics show) which really would also appear at a Comdex and the merging of business items (i.e. the PC) into entertainment (i.e. Home entertainment platform) they might as well. Besides, it also makes CES that much more worthwhile to sneak into as an, uh, respresentative of some ficticious business. (c=
There was a time when shows like Comdex were locally run, smaller shows, better targetted towards the local market (i.e. DPMA Great Lakes Computer Show, may it rest in peace) but being so uneconomical for manufacturers to zip all over the place they try to hold just a few big shows. Hmm.. seems not to be working, where's the scienterrific or economic model showing this failure? I know Computer Shopper is a mere shadow of it's former self, could it be the same forces? I don't think so, probably just less interest in spending on IT at the moment, and IT is reaching the point in the curve where advances produces less of a return, so older equipment and software is just fine.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
COMDEX obit written many times before
by
buckeyeguy
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
... but maybe it's about time this thing died a natural death. Personally, I think it's a sign that the computer industry has truly reached a state of being a commodity industry... years ago, when everything was new and nobody knew what would be the 'next big thing', COMDEX was the place to be. Now, either nobody thinks there will be a next big thing, or nobody cares.
-- I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
Not true...
by
Flabby+Boohoo
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Let's be realistic, does anything important really ever happen at COMDEX? The only thing I've ever got out of attending COMDEX is a horrible flu.
That is due mostly to the fact that the products are and services are mostly Windows oriented. And since you absolutely hate Microsoft, I am not surprised by that comment.
I will say that I have found Comdex an excellent resource in seeing product demos and having access to key personnel for one-on-one q&a invaluable. And since the booth staff is usually engineers as well as sales people, you can even get some technical questions answered for products already purchased (that the phone support cannot seem to answer).
Another bonus: getting out of the office for a day and checking out some gorgeous women is worth it on its own merit.
Another bonus: getting out of the office for a day and checking out some gorgeous women is worth it on its own merit. Sleeping with them tends to be much better, try it sometime. Oh wait, you went to Comdex...nevermind:)
COMDEX Opens with Smallest Attendance Ever
by
hottoh
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The first Comdex had about 10k people.
I think more than 10k people attended the first day.
There are better "big" shows now.
by
MtViewGuy
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I think right now if you want to go to a large-scale show with emphasis on computers and related stuff, the best shows are CeBIT in Germany and COMPUTEX in Taiwan.
CeBIT is a huge show that makes COMDEX during its heyday look like a minor event in comparison; COMPUTEX is very relevant nowadays since a lot of computer technology now originates in Taiwan (look at the long list of well-known computer peripheral manufacturers based there).
Big Things Are Happening!
by
scott1853
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Just look, Carly Fiorina announced a new slogan for HP! The only thing that could top that is if Gates got up and announced a new hologram for the CDs!!! What a great time to be a techie.
Location is a problem
by
FJ
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I once worked for a place which was hurting financially. Whenever anyone tried to go to a conference, the first thing the PHBs looked at was the location. If it was in Orlando or someplace fun (like Vegas) they immediately thought it was going to be a company paid vacaiton and rejected the request.
The sad part is some conferences are really good. There were a few I would have gone to if they were held in a garbage dump in Antartica.
Re:Location is a problem
by
wfmcwalter
·
· Score: 3, Informative
My former employer (large computer company) would regularly hold sales
meetings which worldwide sales employees of a given division would attend.
Because of the distribution of staff around the world, it was pretty
obvious that the meetings should occur either on the west coast of the
US or in Hawaii.
They learned through bitter experience that the controllers regarded
Hawaii as "junket city" and San Jose as "get work done city", and so
they could only get stuff approved for San Jose. This dispite the fact
that flights to San Jose were at least as expensive as those to Hawaii,
and hotel accomodation (for several hundred people, for a week) was
considerably more expensive.
So the meetings were always in San Jose (or some other hideous Silicon
Valley heckhole), at twice the price their Hawaiian equivalents would have
been.
Hey, we would be paying off the deficit or not worsening it so much, if only...
oh never mind....:)
But wasn't that brief period of euphoria wonderful. Something to tell the kids about.
Of course Comdex is dying -- what a boring name! It sounds like a competitor to Rolodex®.
More people attend the 3 Macwords than Comdex
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
More people attend the 3 Macword conventiuns each year than attend Comdex.
thats a fact.
Worse, comdex lies and pads its attendence by about 25%. At least they did not pad by 80% like the Million Man March or Blacks on washington, or Pasadena city civic leaders padding rosebowl parade spectator attendence by over 200%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
With comdex lying by 25% and not caring, its no wonder few want to go there.
The other reason : you can;'t buy cool stuff at great prices at comdex,unlike other shows that allow on-site vending and direct sales specials.
The best part abount comdex is the porno mini-conference of porn multimedia cd-rom publishers and THAT grows every year. EVERY YEAR.
Comdex should allow the porn back into the main halls and then it would gorw and they would not have to declare backruptcy.
Or study the insane dedication of mac people who take paid vacation days if needed to go to macworld. They go for good price deals... and comdex has no deals.
The Web has largely made technology shows obsolete.
There's nothing new out there.
The latter can be squarely blamed on the fact that the computer industry has become hostile to new ideas. Everything's gotta be the same old humdrum PeeCee stuff. Ten years ago, everyone was trying out new ideas. Nowadays, nobody wants to try anything new because there's no hope of making any money -- all good ideas are promptly stolen by Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Cisco, etc.... who can do it bigger and cheaper.
Is it any wonder that the only part of the tech world where change is really happening, is in the open source universe? Where the business rules don't apply?
-- Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Re:There's nothing new.
by
sacdelta
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
There are at least 2 additional things that I believe are largely responsible for the recent drop in attendance that are directly the fault of the people who are organizing COMDEX.
1) The way they handled the merging of the two venues. "Oh, Creative, we don't think you'll mind giving up the prime real estate for this location in the back corner." This decision drove out most of the multimedia people last year (I don't know if they came back this year). But even the thought that they might do the same thing again on such short notice has kept me from even considering a return this year.
2) They are charging more for the small booths causing fewer businesses to use them. These booths are a major incentive for many people to show up. Everyone knows they can go on Microsoft's or IBM's website to see what they are up to, but it was very convenient to go to the show and see a bunch of smaller companies and see what they had available all in one place. But with higher fees, they are systematically driving those people out.
These are things that weren't outside of their control.
--
Brought to you by: "Al"toids - the curiously weird mint.
one good thing that happened..
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 4, Funny
Microsoft getting a blue screen when hooking up a scanner to a computer with Windows 98.. that, my friend, is classic:-)
COMDEX ... People don't get it
by
salesgeek
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I've been to a few COMDEX shows. The industry is changing forever.
* Usually there are revolutionary small vendors with products or software that will be the next big thing.
* The big guys give out a lot of free stuff... but don't really do anything other than brand building.
* I usually make business relationships that pay for the entire show within 60 days of the event.
I'd hate to see Comdex go... but it is not as it was in the early and late 90s.
$G
-- -- $G
"Apple Computer": A Ridiculous LIberal Myth
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Funny
For years, liberals and pinkos have rattled on and on about supposedly "superior" computers produced by the California lefties at Apple Computer. I will explain why this company is nothing more than a front for the International Communist Conspiracy, aided and abetted by their liberal fellow-travelers in the American computer community.
This so-called "company" was founded by a pair of dope-smoking phone service thieves from Berkeley, a hotbed of Communist activity even today. "Apple Computer" supposedly went on to pioneer a graphical interface - actually developed by the good American patriots at Xerox - and develop its own hardware monopoly, just as its Communist creators would impose a state monopoly on all computer-using Americans.
For a short time, this Red front tried to infiltrate the American business community by facetiously engaging in free trade practices, but this only served to disillusion its enthralled socialist followers who complained about a supposed drop in quality. What they really couldn't stand, like all liberals, was choice and capitalism. They only returned to "Apple" when it returned to its old crypto-Stalinist practices.
"Apple Computer" is nothing more than a liberal-backed fifth column intended to subvert the American computer industry, and ultimately bankrupt good capitalist companies such as Microsoft and Intel. "Apple" isn't the only front group run by the International Communist Conspiracy. "Sun Microsystems" engages in similar monopolistic practices, trying to enforce a single hardware and software standard on all users, instead of the choices offered by Microsoft. Worst of all are the smaller Red fronts using the communist Linux operating system, with names like "Mandrake" (a French front, of course), and even really obvious ones like Red Hat! Linux is distributed under a Commie license that forces developers to give away the fruits of their labour, just as Marx ordered all good Communists to work as much as they could for a pittance in return in an illusory equal society.
All of these so-called companies are just fronts for Communists and liberal fellow-travellers. Remember, when you buy Apple or download Linux, you're supporting Communism. Good Americans support real freedom-loving businesses like Microsoft and Intel.
Laugh at me now, remember me later when you're all forced to used slow computers with horrid interfaces foisted upon an enslaved public by the commissars who used to fester in American business under the liberal myth that they were an independent company that loved capitalism called Apple Computer.
Re:"Apple Computer": A Ridiculous LIberal Myth
by
pcs305
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Bill?
Re:should be an opportunity
by
tomhudson
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
For much less than the cost of a booth at one of these shows, you can host your own install-fest locally.
Remember the phrase "think globally - act locally"? The death of Comdex (maybe we should start calling it condex, with all the vapourware that's been shown there) will probably be a good thing for everyone in the long run.
Or once a month, make a copy of your favourite distro and give it to a total stranger - they gas jockey, the cashier at the supermarket, whatever... and donate a copy to the local library, to lend out.
I never understood...
by
The+Raven
·
· Score: 3, Funny
... the whole 'get free stuff' mentality that many convention goers have. I almost never get the T-Shirts or pens or whatever because I simply don't care. I go to see the products... not even the booth babes will sway my attention.
I don't understand the concept of spending over $1000 on tickets and hotels just to gawk at boobs and pick up some free T-Shirts.
If you want a T-Shirt, visit a damn mall... it'll cost a lot less.
-- "I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it."
Hello Alphabet.
No, really, best things about Comdex:
by
bobdehnhardt
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Free t-shirts: I never packed more that a couple days' worth of shirts. Wore freebies most of the week.
24-hour beer/booze, no last call
AdultDex provided look at cutting edge multimedia (lets face it, pron pushed this envelope long before the game makers)
Insightful Comdex seminars (paid for by work) provided opportunity to sleep after 24-hour booze/beer and AdultDex "sessions"
Comdex 95
by
Mittermeyer
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I was at Comdex 1995.
*Microsoft was just rolling out Win95, *the Newton fanatics were having their last lovefest, *Sony demoed DVD, *Novell told us our refrigerators were going to be hooked up to a network, *PowerPC had a tent with actual applications but an air of desperation about it, *Lotus Notes was pushing it's relatively new thing, *Citrix was trying to sell people on physical Winterms, *no one knew how to spell internet, *SSA disks were introduced, *the K-series of processors were coming, *the Alpha motherboard hackers held court, *and there was one teeny tiny Linux booth with the most kickass demo there.
So in other words Comdex is a place where you can see the past, present and future if you have the wits to look for and recognize it. But you will still get your butt kicked by surprises.
-- ________________________________________
History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
Slashdot Mirror
the front page photo looks like a nazi regime guy naming all his allies. No wonder every decided to stay away.
Scott McNealy proves he's really a Vulcan... ..everybody do the funny finger thing...
personally i stopped bothering to sign up with them because i got more spam from them then any other 'legit' convention so far.
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
does anything important really ever happen at COMDEX?
wasn't the Amiga 1000 introduced at COMDEX 1985?
After all, the site has the headline: ...
"COMDEX Opens with Largest Drop in Attendance Ever !
Attendance Down More Than 50% from Two Years Ago
The Show Organizer May File for Bankruptcy Protection"
then..
"COMDEX Refuses to Issue "Press Badge" to SYS-CON Media"
Coincidence? Probably.
on the Apple rumours sites (forums.appleinsider.com, appleturns.com, www.mosr.com, www.macrumours.com, ...) there's a whole lot of babling going on anout AMD going in bed with Apple. Either for a hammer version of OSX, or AMD fabbing the next PPC...
Prolly just nonsense, but exciting anyway..maybe..
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
I always thought that, in computing at least, everything's *meant* to get smaller...
When my boss is away to Comdex, it's an excellent time of unhindered progress -- I go to work and get some work done!!! . When everyone's in town, all we ever do is sit in 5t00p1d m33t1ng5 all day long. I wish there were more than one Comdex a year.
1. Networking was going to be big
2. Networking was going to be overvalued
3. The bubble was about to burst.
Don't know about the rest of you, but I made over $2 million just through going to Comdex. I think this was money well spent.
I've also learned that the business people know as little as the rest of us about where things are going. Thir guesses are never right. They might make some good guesses about what market will do well, but its almost always for the wrong reasons.
Well, at least in Comdex you get the chance to smell, weigh, shake, and look under the things that are available mostly anywhere in the web.
But the plain truth is that attedance to trade fairs is going down anywhere; the same happened in SIMO, the spanish Comdex (if there's such a thing), which happened a short while ago. Product presentations are mainly done outside them, so it does not make a lot of sense to go to a trade fair to see booth after booth of computers, laptops, palmtops or whatever is the rage that year.
It's just a BloJJ
The only thing I've ever got out of attending COMDEX is a horrible flu.
I got my ComputerWorld button collection, a couple of T-shirts and a miniature basketball autographed by Spud Webb.
Well, maybe that's why attendance is down... we've all got our offices decorated now.
Garg
Garg
Alumnus, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
I went to COMDEX last year in the hopes of finding what everyone REALLY wants from COMDEX. T-Shirts.
My boss and I wandered the aisles, looking at new technology vendors (who happened to be giving away shirts).
We came across one friendly looking lady, with at least 7 BOXES of T-Shirts. HEAVEN! I proceed to lay down the geek-speak about how her product would fit into our organization, and I was getting a fairly good response. I felt the T-Shirt grab was "in the bag", so I asked for one.
She looked right at me, smiled, and pointed to the table: "Have a bendy!" Looking at the table, I saw the prize for all of my effort. A wire, wrapped in a plastic/rubber substance. Basically, the prize was as complete of a waste of time as my conversation had been.
To this day, whenever my boss talkes about getting screwed over by someone, he uses the phrase "Have a bendy!"
Video Game News, FAQs, etc
There was a time when shows like Comdex were locally run, smaller shows, better targetted towards the local market (i.e. DPMA Great Lakes Computer Show, may it rest in peace) but being so uneconomical for manufacturers to zip all over the place they try to hold just a few big shows. Hmm.. seems not to be working, where's the scienterrific or economic model showing this failure? I know Computer Shopper is a mere shadow of it's former self, could it be the same forces? I don't think so, probably just less interest in spending on IT at the moment, and IT is reaching the point in the curve where advances produces less of a return, so older equipment and software is just fine.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
... but maybe it's about time this thing died a natural death. Personally, I think it's a sign that the computer industry has truly reached a state of being a commodity industry... years ago, when everything was new and nobody knew what would be the 'next big thing', COMDEX was the place to be. Now, either nobody thinks there will be a next big thing, or nobody cares.
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
Let's be realistic, does anything important really ever happen at COMDEX? The only thing I've ever got out of attending COMDEX is a horrible flu.
That is due mostly to the fact that the products are and services are mostly Windows oriented. And since you absolutely hate Microsoft, I am not surprised by that comment.
I will say that I have found Comdex an excellent resource in seeing product demos and having access to key personnel for one-on-one q&a invaluable. And since the booth staff is usually engineers as well as sales people, you can even get some technical questions answered for products already purchased (that the phone support cannot seem to answer).
Another bonus: getting out of the office for a day and checking out some gorgeous women is worth it on its own merit.
The first Comdex had about 10k people.
I think more than 10k people attended the first day.
I think right now if you want to go to a large-scale show with emphasis on computers and related stuff, the best shows are CeBIT in Germany and COMPUTEX in Taiwan.
CeBIT is a huge show that makes COMDEX during its heyday look like a minor event in comparison; COMPUTEX is very relevant nowadays since a lot of computer technology now originates in Taiwan (look at the long list of well-known computer peripheral manufacturers based there).
Just look, Carly Fiorina announced a new slogan for HP! The only thing that could top that is if Gates got up and announced a new hologram for the CDs!!! What a great time to be a techie.
I once worked for a place which was hurting financially. Whenever anyone tried to go to a conference, the first thing the PHBs looked at was the location. If it was in Orlando or someplace fun (like Vegas) they immediately thought it was going to be a company paid vacaiton and rejected the request.
The sad part is some conferences are really good. There were a few I would have gone to if they were held in a garbage dump in Antartica.
On a related note, a comdex article on /. gets fewest responses ever...
The law of excluded middle : Either I'm foo or I'm foobar
Hey, we would be paying off the deficit or not worsening it so much, if only...
:)
oh never mind....
But wasn't that brief period of euphoria wonderful. Something to tell the kids about.
Of course Comdex is dying -- what a boring name! It sounds like a competitor to Rolodex®.
More people attend the 3 Macword conventiuns each year than attend Comdex.
thats a fact.
Worse, comdex lies and pads its attendence by about 25%. At least they did not pad by 80% like the Million Man March or Blacks on washington, or Pasadena city civic leaders padding rosebowl parade spectator attendence by over 200%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
With comdex lying by 25% and not caring, its no wonder few want to go there.
The other reason : you can;'t buy cool stuff at great prices at comdex,unlike other shows that allow on-site vending and direct sales specials.
The best part abount comdex is the porno mini-conference of porn multimedia cd-rom publishers and THAT grows every year. EVERY YEAR.
Comdex should allow the porn back into the main halls and then it would gorw and they would not have to declare backruptcy.
Or study the insane dedication of mac people who take paid vacation days if needed to go to macworld. They go for good price deals... and comdex has no deals.
- The Web has largely made technology shows obsolete.
- There's nothing new out there.
The latter can be squarely blamed on the fact that the computer industry has become hostile to new ideas. Everything's gotta be the same old humdrum PeeCee stuff. Ten years ago, everyone was trying out new ideas. Nowadays, nobody wants to try anything new because there's no hope of making any money -- all good ideas are promptly stolen by Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Cisco, etc.Is it any wonder that the only part of the tech world where change is really happening, is in the open source universe? Where the business rules don't apply?
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Microsoft getting a blue screen when hooking up a scanner to a computer with Windows 98.. that, my friend, is classic :-)
I've been to a few COMDEX shows. The industry is changing forever.
* Usually there are revolutionary small vendors with products or software that will be the next big thing.
* The big guys give out a lot of free stuff... but don't really do anything other than brand building.
* I usually make business relationships that pay for the entire show within 60 days of the event.
I'd hate to see Comdex go... but it is not as it was in the early and late 90s.
$G
-- $G
For years, liberals and pinkos have rattled on and on about supposedly "superior" computers produced by the California lefties at Apple Computer. I will explain why this company is nothing more than a front for the International Communist Conspiracy, aided and abetted by their liberal fellow-travelers in the American computer community.
This so-called "company" was founded by a pair of dope-smoking phone service thieves from Berkeley, a hotbed of Communist activity even today. "Apple Computer" supposedly went on to pioneer a graphical interface - actually developed by the good American patriots at Xerox - and develop its own hardware monopoly, just as its Communist creators would impose a state monopoly on all computer-using Americans.
For a short time, this Red front tried to infiltrate the American business community by facetiously engaging in free trade practices, but this only served to disillusion its enthralled socialist followers who complained about a supposed drop in quality. What they really couldn't stand, like all liberals, was choice and capitalism. They only returned to "Apple" when it returned to its old crypto-Stalinist practices.
"Apple Computer" is nothing more than a liberal-backed fifth column intended to subvert the American computer industry, and ultimately bankrupt good capitalist companies such as Microsoft and Intel. "Apple" isn't the only front group run by the International Communist Conspiracy. "Sun Microsystems" engages in similar monopolistic practices, trying to enforce a single hardware and software standard on all users, instead of the choices offered by Microsoft. Worst of all are the smaller Red fronts using the communist Linux operating system, with names like "Mandrake" (a French front, of course), and even really obvious ones like Red Hat! Linux is distributed under a Commie license that forces developers to give away the fruits of their labour, just as Marx ordered all good Communists to work as much as they could for a pittance in return in an illusory equal society.
All of these so-called companies are just fronts for Communists and liberal fellow-travellers. Remember, when you buy Apple or download Linux, you're supporting Communism. Good Americans support real freedom-loving businesses like Microsoft and Intel.
Laugh at me now, remember me later when you're all forced to used slow computers with horrid interfaces foisted upon an enslaved public by the commissars who used to fester in American business under the liberal myth that they were an independent company that loved capitalism called Apple Computer.
Remember the phrase "think globally - act locally"? The death of Comdex (maybe we should start calling it condex, with all the vapourware that's been shown there) will probably be a good thing for everyone in the long run.
Or once a month, make a copy of your favourite distro and give it to a total stranger - they gas jockey, the cashier at the supermarket, whatever... and donate a copy to the local library, to lend out.
... the whole 'get free stuff' mentality that many convention goers have. I almost never get the T-Shirts or pens or whatever because I simply don't care. I go to see the products... not even the booth babes will sway my attention.
I don't understand the concept of spending over $1000 on tickets and hotels just to gawk at boobs and pick up some free T-Shirts.
If you want a T-Shirt, visit a damn mall... it'll cost a lot less.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
I was at Comdex 1995.
*Microsoft was just rolling out Win95,
*the Newton fanatics were having their last lovefest,
*Sony demoed DVD,
*Novell told us our refrigerators were going to be hooked up to a network,
*PowerPC had a tent with actual applications but an air of desperation about it,
*Lotus Notes was pushing it's relatively new thing,
*Citrix was trying to sell people on physical Winterms,
*no one knew how to spell internet,
*SSA disks were introduced,
*the K-series of processors were coming,
*the Alpha motherboard hackers held court,
*and there was one teeny tiny Linux booth with the most kickass demo there.
So in other words Comdex is a place where you can see the past, present and future if you have the wits to look for and recognize it. But you will still get your butt kicked by surprises.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________