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Has CES Lost Its Star Appeal?
An opinion piece by tech writer David Gilbert looks at how CES might be losing some of its luster. "It's hard to know who the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) really benefits. A common perception is that CES is the place where all the major technology companies launch their latest and greatest gadgets. But this is simply not the case. Let's look at 2012 as an example. Last year's most talked about consumer technology products (in no particular order) were: the iPhone 5, iPad 3, iPad mini, Microsoft Surface, Samsung Galaxy S3, Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire HD and the Wii U. How many were launched at CES 2012? None."
it's become a showroom full of flying cars. they're super awesome, but they're not quite at production status yet,
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Just like ComDex, CES is becoming irrelevant due to the internet. The whole point of trade shows was always to get the reporters and salesman in front of new products and (hopefully) generate some positive press leading to consumer demand. Once the internet started to go big, and magazine reviews weren't quite as necessary for product exposure, the tradeshows tried to almost evolve into entertainment expos.
The final nail in the coffin has been when individual studios or manufacturers get enough industry cloud to host their own tradeshow, which just fractures the already weakened idea.
CES reminds me a lot of Kodak and Polaroid and other older businesses that have chosen to brute force their way into the future, rather than change their models to fit it. It never works out.
Yes, Microsoft is absent this year, but Apple hasn't been there for ages, so any complaints about Microsoft apply to Apple many times over.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."