Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!husc6!amcad!stech!sysop From: sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Report on the Expo Message-ID: <639@stech.UUCP> Date: 14 Aug 88 22:45:49 GMT Organization: Scholastech, Inc., Waltham, Mass. Lines: 86 The MacWorld Expo closed at 6 p.m. last night, with the normal cheers from all the exhibitors (you get pretty tired by the end of four days...) This article contains some comments about what was there, and what wasn't! They're in random order, not in order of importance. Splitting the exhibits between two halls worked better than most people expected. There seemed to be plenty of shuttle buses (though the lack of transportation from South Station to the World Trade Center was a major oversight - the one mile walk in 90+ degree heat with dew points in the 70's was hard on everybody). Neither hall was as crowded as the Bayside was last year. It was much easier to talk to vendors and to move about. The air conditioning systems also had a better chance to keep things reasonably cool. Whoever was running the bag check operations scored a major coup. Not only would they guard your stuff while you wandered, but they were selling boxes and providing shipping so you didn't have to carry all your goodies on the plane with you. 1 meg SIMMs were everywhere. One fellow at the Bayside sat in a bare booth with four trays in from of him. His sign read "SIMMs". Need he say more? He wanted $425-450/meg. However, over at the World Trade Center, MacProducts USA had 1 meg SIMMS for $319. Apparently this is their standard price. They say that they make them themselves. The prize for the glitziest display goes to Informix, for their Wingz booth. The lines to go through their eight minute show were huge, primarily because you got a niftly shoulder bag when you came out. The show was an integrated video (narrated by Leonard Nemoy) and computer demo. As you lined up, Informix employees took names and addresses, promising to mail a demo disk. Informix also wins the prize for the most highly hyped vaporware - the same product called Wingz. (It's a "presentation spreadsheet", which means it's a spreadsheet with rather nifty graphics capabilities - if it ever loses its vaporware status.) Prize for the most effective booth goes to Claris. Their simple design really showed off their products effectively. No, it wasn't as flashy as Wingz, but it did the job. Prize for the most interesting contest goes to MacConnection. They printed up baseball cards which on one side had a head honcho of a company whose product they sell. On the reverse was a description of the product. The cards were then placed at the booths whose products were featured. Then, an Expo attendee had to collect a certain number of cards (by visiting the booths). Once they got the cards, then they could enter MacConnection's drawing. (I actually forget what the prize was; I was so taken by the whole concept of the contest). The baseball cards were really useful - it gave you something to give to little kids so they wouldn't destroy your booth while mom and dad were busy talking. Prize for the most obnoxious staff goes to Dayna. When I asked one of their technical people a question, he told me "it was in the manual", and proceeded to pull one out and show me. I explained that I read the section to which he referred, but that it was unclear, and that I didn't get what he was telling me from what was written. He then made me feel like I was an idiot because I couldn't decipher plain English. Not good, folks.... There seemed to be a lot of business people on Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday. Saturday, traditionally the day when the expo is mobbed by home users, hobbyists and their kids, was surprisingly light. A lot of people were mumbling that Apple is ignoring the home user. If the crowd at this Expo is any indicator, then that may be the case. This Expo wasn't as "exciting" as last year's; there weren't the major product announcements. However, there were a lot of good, solid products being shown (Ashton-Tate's FullImpact looks like it's going to give Excel a real run for its money, for example). People were buying (Odesta brought only 100 copies of my Double Helix book; we sold out before noon on Friday and had to resort to taking orders); people were asking intelligent questions. The bottom line - a good show, though I sure am tired. Jan Harrington, sysop Scholastech Telecommunications UUCP: husc6!amcad!stech!sysop or allegra!stech!sysop BITNET: JHARRY@BENTLEY ******************************************************************************** Miscellaneous profundity: "No matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Banzai ********************************************************************************