Dinosaurs, Dodoes, Comdex ... CES?
The first day of CES has come to a close. Bill Gates has said his farewell. And the word from the press and attendees is that CES is starting to look a lot like Comdex. Dead. Nothing new. Same old promises. Too much hype.
I'm not surprised.
AMEN, brother! Rich Wallace did a great review of Rob Brownstein's new book on value chains and the consumer-elec market on the EE Times blog, and I liked his points, but I kept thinking: The more the electronics industry becomes captive to consumer toys, the more we fall into the parade of useless, mindless stuff.
ReplyDeleteWhile I hate the cult, I give Apple its due outside of its lauded interface design simplicity: they focus on just a few products. It's almost as if they're saying "if we don't make it, you don't need it." A computer, a phone, a media player. They do make the iTV platform which no one needs in its current incarnation, but might in the next five years. Do I really need a Bluetooth device that starts my car and communicates with my pacemaker? No, but i could find it in Vegas if i looked hard enough!
ReplyDeleteOnce again you have the point of COMDEX all wrong. It is so easy for people to rip on COMDEX because of its last years and forget the major contribution that came out of it for a quarter of a century. I'll say it again....
ReplyDeleteCOMDEX was a wonderful show when computing was new and only one source of information was necessary. As time went on and computing technology grew, company messaging broke down into niche verticals like networking, security, and others that more specialized events began to fill those specific needs. COMDEX became less relevant and was just not needed any more. Don't forget that the first COMDEX was even before IBM introduced the AT or XT.
Once again you have the point of COMDEX all wrong. It is so easy for people to rip on COMDEX because of its last years and forget the major contribution that came out of it for a quarter of a century. I'll say it again....
ReplyDeleteCOMDEX was a wonderful show when computing was new and only one source of information was necessary. As time went on and computing technology grew, company messaging broke down into niche verticals like networking, security, and others that more specialized events began to fill those specific needs. COMDEX became less relevant and was just not needed any more. Don't forget that the first COMDEX was even before IBM introduced the AT or XT.