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COMDEX Cancelled Again
An anonymous reader noted that COMDEX has been cancelled for the second year in a row. And meanwhile, thousands of IT professionals rejoice that they won't be again exposed to strange strains of viruses that their immune system can't handle.
Jeez, even as an excuse to go to Las Vegas, and it's CANCELLED AGAIN! Bastards!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Bah, who needs COMDEX to get strange strains of viruses? I'll get mine over the Internet, thank you very much!
Set the bar high, then bring a tall ladder.
So what's the point? Is it coming back? Is this going to be a new meme? "Duke Nukem for Longhorn SE to come out at Comdex, now powered by cold fusion... in Japan!"
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
I went to Comdex a few times in the mid 90's, and while there were some neat things to see (hardware MPEG decoder cards had just become widely available, with several vendors showing off their various models), it was just too crowded and too unfocused. Wander two aisles over, and instead of multimedia hardware, you were at the cheap PC case makers. Even a few large LED manufacturers set up booths. WTF? I'm sure LED's are important, but how large of an audience can you get at Comdex for a commodity product like LED's?
It's time to move on, and let Comdex die. I'd insert a "Netcraft confirms it" troll/joke here, but I'm sure somebody's already dedicated an entire post to it.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
not since the bubble, man the things that would go on at those IT trade shows. I went to a wireless one in New Orleans that just 'happened' to be scheduled in the middle of Mardi Gras...damn, talk about viruses
Oh for the world of stock options and big promotional booths for products that didn't exist then and still don't now. To booth babes and bunnys, T-shirts and ice cream. I never won a car or PDA, but I haven't bought a pen in 6 years.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
They were replaced by a small shell script.
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
It might actually be a good thing that this is being cancelled. From the article they state one of the reasons is that the promoters are moving towards smaller, but more targeted shows.
Comdex comes from a time when consumer grade computing was still in it infancy, so a general cover all everything show was possible, and a good idea. Now, with the field being so huge it's probably better to not try and cover the entire market in one go.
I want my IT people to have grounding in the entire computer field, but to be very specific to their field in detail. I want my network security people to eat and sleep network security and my hardware people to dream of nothing but hardware.
Inevitable, I think. Back in the day, before the dark times, before the Empire, I mean, before the internet, Comdex was one of the few places IT professionals could go to see new hardware, software demonstrations, etc. Because it was so big, companies geared their release schedules so that their new gee-whiz stuff would come out right before or right after Fall Comdex (and to a lesser extent, Spring Comdex).
Then, along comes the internet, and companies had an easy way to disseminate new product information, software demos, etc., on a year round basis. Companies became less inclined to hold new releases for Comdex, and the show becames less important (and much less useful).
Of course, marketing it so that it appealed to the PHB's who looked at it as an excuse to spend a week in Vegas further diluted its appeal to the tech crowd.
Same thing happened to the auto industry -- it used to be that they focused all their energy on the new model year (starting in September, if I remember). Now, although most of the major manufacturers still release new models in the fall, it's become more of a year round effort.
I think last year, some folks were wondering "what's going to happen without COMDEX? Well, the tech world kept on going, products still hit the market, and everything carried on fine without it.
Like a few people have said, the smaller, more focused shows are doing OK (Linuxworld out here in Boston seemed to be a hit, for instance), but I think the day of the giant "everything for everybody" show is over. N+I is dead for all practical purposes (I used to go to the Atlanta one), Macworld is pretty much down to one (though last years' Boston show was OK), and the only "biggie" left is CES for now.
Ultimately the Internet and the tech bust killed the trade show, but more importantly the maturity of the market has made the biggest impact. No COMDEX? Big deal.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."