The Cutting Edge: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : Calm Down--It’s Time for Comdex to Rear Its Monstrous Head : Computers: Microsoft’s on-line service is expected to make the biggest splash at the trade show the industry loves to hate.
To the madness and mayhem of Comdex, add Marvel. That’s the code name for software giant Microsoft Corp.’s entry into the booming category of on-line services, which Chairman Bill Gates himself is expected to unveil to the media Monday on the mega-convention’s opening day in Las Vegas.
Marvel is likely to make the biggest splash at the fall Comdex, that monstrous trade show the computer world loves to hate. It looms again--all five days, 2,200 exhibits, 2.5 million square feet and 190,000 attendees.
With the computer industry experiencing boom times, Comdex is a must for computer vendors, electronics retailers and technology journalists--but few relish the experience. Taxi lines are endless, plane reservations impossible and prices for booth space and hotel rooms extortionate.
And Comdex has become too big and diffuse to be the hotbed of breaking news it once was. These days, it’s almost better known for its lavish after-hours parties. (Details below.)
“Most larger companies try to avoid making announcements at Comdex because you just get lost in the noise,” said Richard Shaffer, a principal in Technologic Partners, a New York consulting firm.
But there will be some trends and companies to watch. If you’re headed there, here’s a sampling:
* The PowerPC partners--IBM, Apple and Motorola--have leased a 17,000-square-foot tent in the convention center parking lot to showcase their efforts to make their new microprocessor a force with which Intel must reckon. Inside this “PowerPC Pavilion,” 60-odd software developers will demonstrate applications on a variety of operating systems.
* An ideal fillip for the PowerPC triumvirate would be an announcement by some company--notably IBM--that it is licensing Apple’s Macintosh operating system, but experts who read the industry’s silicon flecks don’t foresee such a revelation at Comdex.
* Microsoft’s Marvel--one of the worst-kept secrets in the industry--will finally get a formal public airing at a media luncheon Monday. Will Microsoft Network--as it’s likely to be named--run away with the entire installed base of Windows users? Stay tuned.
* For the technologically challenged (i.e., most of us), computer maker Acer America will spotlight its “Out of Box Experience,” a new on-line service on Acer multimedia systems that walks a user through the set-up of software and printer.
* Watch for some interesting portables--very lightweight, very thin, fully functional--from Digital Equipment and Hewlett-Packard.
* Three heavy hitters--Gates of Microsoft, Bob Frankenberg of Novell and Andrew Grove of Intel--will deliver keynote speeches.
* And now for the really important stuff: the parties. On Monday night, Tony Bennett croons for WordPerfect and Novell, while Eric Idle of Monty Python fame graces multimedia fledgling 7th Level’s “Complete Waste of Time” bash, featuring hot rock ‘n’ roll from the likes of one-time Pink Floyd saxophonist Scott Page. Willie Nelson headlines Micrografx’s Tuesday evening “Chili-for-Children Cook-Off” fund-raiser for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. And Intuit, whose full-court press in personal finance software prompted Microsoft to offer to buy it for $1.5 billion in stock, features the Harlem Globetrotters in a Wednesday night hoop-la.
