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

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	Miscellaneous profundity:

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