At least, this is the opinion of Mark Hachman, expressed in this column, "Comdex: Best of the Worst." And he's not alone. John Markoff compared SC2003 and Comdex for the New York Times in "Big beats small."
Let's start with a quote from Markoff, as an appetizer.
Here in Phoenix, 8,000 people crowded into SC2003, the 15-year-old supercomputing industry trade show and conference that has traditionally been the exclusive province of some of the brainiest techies in the computer industry. Meanwhile, Comdex -- long the industry's premier annual event -- was a shadow of its former self at its 24-year-old home in Las Vegas, though it still drew an estimated 45,000 people.
Please remember that the number of people attending the Supercomputing annual event, until this year, was a very small fraction of the number of visitors of Comdex. But of course, it's no longer a *real* supercomputing event, like I wrote last year in "Supercomputing -- Should We Say Superclustering? -- Is Alive And Well."
After this digression, let's turn to the humorous Hachman's column. Here is how it starts.
Comdex sucked.
There, we said it. It's not like this is news, either. What is news, however, is why it sucked: the show was even emptier than last year. Gone are the days when you could crane your neck down the aisles and see banners advertising the crème de la crème of the technology industry: Microsoft, IBM, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Dell, and others. This year, it was Microsoft, and... Microsoft. The MS booth even had a Dell booth inside it, like it had been, well, assimilated.
Anyway, Hachman spent some time touring the show, and selected some interesting -- or weird -- devices. Read his column for more details. I just picked one of his selections, robotic sensors from a company he forgot the name.
Here how they looked (Credit: Mark Hachman).
Are you ready for Hachman's comments?
You won't be able to buy these little guys -- the manufacturer designs servo motors for robotic pets and other gadgets and built these little robotic whatchamacallits to attract showgoers. I can't say the "dog" showed any real intelligence; it simply rolled over, turned somersaults, and kind of shuffled toward my foot, which it proceeded to do obscene things to. Actually, the way it moved resembled some sort of a robotic zombie dog... that did obscene things to my foot. This is what passed for "booth babes" at this year's Comdex.
So the real question is: will Comdex disappear or recover?
[Additional note: thanks to Robin Good who sent me a pointer to this story.]
Sources: Mark Hachman, ExtremeTech, November 26, 2003; John Markoff, New York Times, November 25, 2003
7:53:13 PM
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