Trade Shows - POPULAR INDUSTRY EVENTS

POPULAR INDUSTRY EVENTS

During the earliest years of the 21st century, the Internet became an increasingly popular tool used by enterprises for many facets of business. While the e-commerce tools of the late 1990s focused on using the Web for marketing and sales efforts, the e-business tools of the 2000s broadened in scope to also handle things like procurement and other back-end business functions. Major trade shows began reflecting this trend, and instead of focusing solely on information technology (IT) or e-commerce tools, they began to incorporate both into events. In fact, CMP Media LLC canceled its 2001 eBusiness Conference & Expo in order to retool the show's focus. Instead, the company planned to hold the TechEnterprise Conference & Expo in December 2002, with a focus on the integration of technology and e-business.

Even as size and attendance at technology-based trade shows began to dwindle in the new millennium, many events continued to focus on both technology and e-business. In fact, some of these shows evolved into popular annual or seasonal events. Among the most well known are the Internet World shows, the International Consumer Electronic Show (CES), the COMDEX show, Seybold Seminars conferences and technology expositions, the Macworld Conference & Expo, the COMNET Conference & Expo, PC Expo, @d:tech, and the infamous DefCon conventions.

The Internet World shows are the largest trade show events in the e-business and Internet industries. Owned by Penton Media Inc., the Internet World conventions have experienced a decline in attendance over the past several years. In fact, according to a 2000 B to B magazine article, "the Internet industry's flagship event now faces competition from a slew of specialty e-commerce and b-to-b shows, as well as from traditional IT industry events such as COMDEX or PC Expo that increasingly focus on Internet technologies." During the Internet World Fall 2000 show, over 1,000 companies were on display in over 300,000 square feet of exhibition space at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. The event drew nearly 60,000 attendees interested in the show's Web content management, wireless, and streaming media conferences. Keynote speakers included executives from Intel Corp., America Online Inc. (AOL), Oracle Corp., CMGI Inc., and idealab!. Over 30,000 people are expected to attend the Internet World Fall 200l, which is postponed until December due the terrorist events of September 11, 2001. The show's keynote speakers will include Compaq Computer Corp.'s CEO Michael Capellas, AOL's co-chief operating officer Robert Pittman, and RealNetworks Inc.'s CEO Rob Glaser.

Sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association, the first CES show took place in New York in 1967 with 200 exhibitors and 17,500 attendees. By 2001, the show had evolved to include 2,000 exhibitors; 126,730 attendees; and 1.2 million net square feet of exhibition space. Known as the world's largest annual trade show in the consumer technology industry, CES draws its audience from 110 countries around the world. It showcases products and services ranging from digital imaging to wireless communications to satellite systems. The January 2001 CES four-day show held in Las Vegas, Nevada, featured keynote speakers Bill Gates, of Microsoft Corp., and Intel's CEO Craig Barrett. During the event, Microsoft launched its new gaming system Xbox, and Intel introduced its Pocket Concert wireless digital music player.

The COMDEX show, produced by Key3Media Group Inc., is the largest annual IT trade show, attracting exhibitors and attendees from over 140 countries. In existence for over 20 years, COMDEX operates as global marketplace serving the IT industry. While attendance was down nearly 30 percent at the COMDEX Fall 2001 show in Las Vegas, some 2,000 exhibitors introduced approximately 390 new products at the event. The number of companies present at the 2001 show dropped by roughly 400, while the number of new products introduced rose by over 130. Bill Gates gave his annual keynote address, predicting that even while the economy was slowing, 2002 would be a year of growth for the technology industry. At the show, Microsoft touted its new book-sized tablet computer, claiming that the tablets would replace laptops within five years; a tablet PC has the same memory capacity as a laptop, but can recognize handwriting and connect wirelessly to the Internet. In 2002, the COMDEX Fall show will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, along with Key3Media Group's NetWorld+Interop event, a show that caters to the Internet protocol (IP) networking and telecommunications industries.

Key3Media Group also produces the Seybold Seminars conferences and technology events, which focus on media technology-and publishing-related products and services. The Seybold San Francisco 2001 show was sponsored by Apple Computer Inc. and Adobe Systems Inc., and included special sessions on convergence among devices such as Palm Pilots, cell phones, pagers, and laptop computers. The event also addressed the issue of digital rights management (DRM), a popular topic dealing with protection of the rights of copyright holders, and also focused on e-books and e-publishing. Key3Media Group produces a total of 40 e-business-related events in 17 countries across the globe. These events feature over 6,000 exhibiting companies and draw over one million attendees each year.

The Macworld Conference & Expo, put on by IT event management company IDG World Expo, is a semiannual event taking place each year in New York City in July and San Francisco in January. For nearly twenty years, Macworld has showcased the Macintosh (Mac) operating system and Apple Computer's hardware and software. The event draws thousands of Mac enthusiasts each year and is typically used to launch new Mac products. IDG also produces the COMNET Conference & Expo, a networking and communications trade show. Ivan Seidenberg, president and co-CEO of Verizon Communications; Wolfgang Kemna, CEO of SAP America Inc.; and Patrick Nettles, chairman of CIENA Corp., were slated to keynote the January 2002 four-day show, which will be held in Washington D.C. The themes of the event include such issues as enterprise networking security, optical networking, regulatory issues, and wireless infrastructure.

PC Expo, part of CMP Media LLC's Technology Exchange Week New York (TECHXNY) lineup, is a yearly trade show event focused on cutting edge technology in personal computing. Attendance at the show dropped in the early 2000s. Nevertheless, 500 exhibitors including Adobe Systems, Compaq, Hewlett Packard Co., Gateway Inc., IBM Corp., Intel, and Iomega Corp. introduced new products at the 19th annual show. Palm Inc.'s CEO Carl Yankowski delivered the leading keynote speech, signaling the shift in the show's focus from the personal computer to hand-held appliances, including wireless devices. Bill Gates and Andy Grove of Intel had been featured keynote speakers in the past.

@d:tech, a seasonal show known as the premier event for Internet marketing and advertising, also experienced a drop in exhibitors and attendance during its Spring 2001 show, when the number of exhibitors fell 26 percent to 102, and attendance decreased 32 percent to 2,500. During the Fall 2001 event, the number of exhibitors fell to 75. Keynote speakers for the event included executives from Yahoo! Inc. and DoubleClick Inc.

The controversial DefCon show is an annual event that started in the early 1990s. Held in Las Vegas, the yearly show draws over 4,000 computer hackers and those interested in computer security. While DefCon doesn't compare to other leading industry shows in size and scale, it does garner significant media and industry attention due to the rising interest in security issues relating to the Internet. According to research group Datamonitor, spending related to network security is expected to increase from $10.6 billion in 2001 to $22.3 billion in 2004. Although show organizers claim that the intent of the event is to improve Internet security, many in the industry believe the purpose of DefCon is to demonstrate techniques for stealing information from large companies. During the 2001 show, Dimitri Sklyarov, a Russian programmer employed by ElcomSoft Co., was arrested by the FBI for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. At the time, Adobe Systems had developed e-book software that allowed publishers to distribute books electronically. These e-book were encrypted and did not allow the purchaser to copy and resell the book. Sklyarov was paid by his company to create Advanced eBook Processor, a program that removed Adobe System's encryption, thus allowing users to make unauthorized copies of the ebook. Adobe eventually dropped its complaint against ElcomSoft and Sklyarov due to negative publicity and pressure from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but the FBI chose to indict the programmer and his company for trafficking in technology designed to circumvent the rights of a copyright owner and conspiracy charges.

Even as trade show growth slowed during the new millennium, exhibitions continued to play a significant role in the industry. According to an October 2000 Business Week article, "trade shows are indispensable for making contacts, nailing sales, and showing off a hot new product." Finding this to be true, many companies continued to include trade show exhibiting in yearly marketing budgets.