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Comdex Fall 2001
by O.T. Stoll - November 30, 2001 at 17:29:16:
The Moslem's wish is to make a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetime. The Geeks wish to make a pilgrimage to Las Vegas every year for the FALL COMDEX. This year was no exception, it was reported that about 200,000 Geeks and wantabes made it this year. I read somewhere that the Moslems bow down seven times a day pointing toward Mecca. We Geeks don't face north seven times a day but we do face North toward Microsoft quite often, probably too often. There are about 22 COMDEX shows around the world but the Fall COMDEX at Las Vegas is the biggest and is the biggest moneymaker.On Sunday, Bill Gates of Microsoft gave the keynote address to open the show.
I look forward to his addresses. They are not just a lot of talk, but also probably the biggest multi-media event of the whole show. He commented on the future of IT and said, "I'm confident that 2002 will be a year of significant growth. The innovations of the past few years are to the point where we're entering a new era for technology- what I call the "digital decade.""
As the week progressed, others gave their keynote speeches. These were Larry Ellison, Oracle; John Chambers, Cisco; Kunitake Ando, Sony; Jorma Ollila, Nokia; Dick Brown, EDS; Jeff Hawkins, Handspring; Don Listwin, Openwave; Darin Richins, Novell; and, Meg Whitman, eBay.
There were a number of conferences. Like the keynote addresses, the conferences gave us a look into the future. It would be interesting, a year from now, see how the predictions fared.
This year the exhibits were broken down into technology zones. These were Information Appliances, IT Services, Software Platforms and Solutions, (those that exhibited were, Windows, Linux, UNIX, Java, and Netware), Networking, WebWorks, New World Service Providers, Digital Imaging and Publishing and eMobility.
In addition to the COMDEX show, therewere a number of companies that rented hotel rooms, invited members of the media and offered "one on one" meetings with the president. Some had food and drink and some did not. I don't think the "did not's" got many interviews because I noticed that the, "Media", are made up of a lot of chowhounds.
Also, there were the mini-shows that had their shows, (usually for one night with around 50 to 100 exhibitors in hotel ballrooms), with the media and specialists invited. The food was great at all of them and they got good turnouts. These included ShowStoppers, Silicon Northwest, ImageScape and DVD+RW Alliance.
In the coming months, I will tell you about some the exhibitors and their hardware and software.
To close this article, here is some early history of COMDEX furnished by J. P. Davis Company PR team.
1979: COMDEX is born in the midst of glitzy Las Vegas. Held at the MGM Grand (now Bally's) the tradeshow attracts 150 exhibitors and 4,000 attendees. The hot products included word processors and CompuServe starting its first commercial online service.
1980: The show relocates to the Las Vegas Convention Center. Attendance more than doubles to 9,000. Most significant announcements: Novell has networking software - period - not wireless, not local area - just networking. Hot products included the Apple II and III desktops.
1981: 24,000 attendees in Las Vegas. COMDEX/Spring held in New York City. Hot products included the then "screamin' machine" - an IBM PC (64K RAM, two 5.25 inch, 360K floppies, CGA Monitor and cassette tape storage). 1981 also saw the first "portable" computer, weighing in at 24 lbs.
1982: Birth year of Compaq, Adobe Systems, Sun Microsystems and Lotus Development. The cult-classic Commodore-64 comes on the scene. 5.25-inch vs. 3-inch floppies battle the age-old question, "Does size really matter?" Attendance: 49,000.
1983: Silicon Northwest makes its first appearance at COMDEX
1983: COMDEX Highlights: Apple's Lisa vs. the IBM PC Jr. Show Stats: 83,000 attendees; 1300 exhibitors; 5 days of PC (or "microcomputer," as it was known then) heaven. In 1983, Bill Gates' father ran the slide-projector at his son's first keynote presentation at COMDEX.ÿ Microsoft technology would eventually make slide-projectors nearly obsolete.
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