I was at the Comex exhibition yesterday (an annual end-user computer exhibition like the annual Comdex in the US). I can only remember a
few exhibitors who where selling PC and PC-related products - Maxtor, Dell, Chamoxa, Pluto, Linksys. Most of the big name companies such as HP, Toshiba, Compaq were selling Notebooks and Printers. IBM was entirely missing if not for its Thinkpad. Panasonic was selling its DECT phones at generous discounts, and its PC Notebook - the first time I'm seeing this from Panasonic. All of only ONE exhibitor was selling Linux (Xandros) - and that only as a sideshow. The major software vendor was represented by Microsoft (then again, selling mostly X-boxes). There were a few other smaller software vendors plying software such as the Hans Chinese language software and I saw a promoter outside the exbition hall carrying some flyers on Peachtree accounting software. External hard disks are hot, although by no means new. It reminded me of external hard disk-like drives I was playing with some 16 years ago in my then organisation.
But the rest of the exhibition was overrun by exhibitors selling consumer electronics products, really, with brand names like HP (sells more cameras and printers nowadays), Canon, Olympus, Samsung, Fuji Camera, Nikon, etc. Even printers are considered consumer electronics nowadays. I came away from the exhibition with a greater impression of the tons of digital cameras, video cameras, Cellphones and MP3 players (plus speakers mainly from Creative Technologies) on offer. Starhub was literally giving away the O2 phones for new sign-ups and there was a perpetually long queue. Too bad I am already a Starhub subscriber!?
Will consumer electronics take over Comex one day? Is software dead? Is the open source / Linux a fluke? It doesn't seem profitable enough to afford exhibition space?
The times they are a'changin... (Bob Dylan, 1964)
P.S.
Jennifer Mandy found that the link above is broken, which indeed it is. A replacement was suggested, which I have added below. It is amazing that 13 years after I wrote this blogpost, someone still finds it interesting enough to read it!
Thanks, Jennifer!
The times they are a'changin... (Bob Dylan, 1964)
1 comment:
I was cruising yahoo.com looking for information on recording artists and efforts to aid Katrina victims.
When I landed on your blog and got a little distracted - you're writing style is very unique!
I wondered if you wouldn't mind helping to let the world know about the news on Hurricane Katrina and the relief efforts being made? (It's as simple as leaving my comment here for others to see when they visit your blog, but you might also write a post on the topic for wider distribution.)
Over 1,000,000 people have lost their homes, their jobs and the numbers of those who lost their lives is yet unknown.
Alicia Keys, GreenDay, Usher, Dave Matthews and a number of other US recording artists have agreed to perform in a relief concert to aid the victims.
The concert will air live on 3 music networks - namely MTV, VH1 and CMT with proceeds to the American Red Cross.
Thank you for helping to spread the word to the world, and, if you're interested in mp3 files you might like this site for mp3 music...
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