Vegas did me in, folks.
One night at AdultDex at The Imperial Palace, featuring all thelatest in DVD, multimedia, videoconferencing, e-commerce and othertechnology useful to the "adult entertainment" industry, and I was spent.So at the last minute I flew in my minions--my 12-year-old sonVermel, his paramour Ammonia Blossom and their school chumJai Pegue-- to cover the all-ages portion of the tech show.
This sorry Comdex is showing its age (writes Vermel, a discerningcritic).The official word was that 200,000 people showed up, although the city'sall-knowing cab drivers said that was wishful counting. Some think Comdex'sdays as the largest Vegas convention are history. Two said the townattracted more gear heads for the national auto parts dealer show the weekbefore. So put that in your tailpipe and smoke it…
And where were the vendors? No-shows included Motorola,Intel, AMD, IBM,Compaq and Dell. That gave the attendees some elbow room:Toshiba had a monster booth, while Gateway and Sonymoved from the back of the main hall to the front. Iomega had arespectable presence, especially for a company whose stock has been on adownward slope since Comdex two years ago.
Acer wins for best exhibit (chimes in the critically acuteAmmonia Blossom). They hired acrobats who whipped around to New Agemusic while holding notebooks--an impressive feat considering that mostpeople can't handle computers while sitting at their desks. NationalSemiconductor, trying to plug its chips as the way to power newInternet gadgets, resorted to the usual sexist antics in the form ofscantily clad imitation Spice Girls. This had the desired effect onthe testosterone-driven geek audience--i.e., it got their attention--butthose of us in possession of our faculties winced at the spectacle almostas much as at the lyrics: "Easy Internet access/For you and for me/EasyInternet access/Beyond the PC." You get the picture, and it's not a prettyone.
On the show floor, some companies proved savvier that others at drawing acrowd. Booths offering free chocolate chip cookies, foot massages or anytype of T-shirt invariably proved more popular than some of the largercompanies' attempts at entertainment. Philips, for example, staged afull musical extolling the virtues of the networked home to a small, yetperplexed, audience. Honorable mention goes to TurboLinux, though,which hired parachuting penguins that burst through a Microsoft Monopolyboard.
Speaking of monopoly, Sun CEO Scott McNealy, no shrinking violetwhen it comes to bad-mouthing Microsoft, is having a field day with JudgeJackson's finding of fact. At McNealy's Comdex keynote, he played thesong Breaking Up Is Hard to Do, a reasonably low blow. His act sankeven lower in the Q&A that followed. Referring to the ad campaign thatboasts Sun is "the dot in dot-com," McNealy quipped, "SGI and Compaq arethe slash-slash, and Microsoft is the colon. We left that part of thetagline out." Colon jokes! What was he trying to do, evacuate the place?
Bill Gates may be a predatory monopolist, but anyone who has TheB-52s in his Rolodex can't be all bad (reasons the pop-savvy JaiPegue). NEC followed up this flawless act with '70s retrocuriosity REO Speedwagon. And at the annual Micrografx ChiliCookoff, the Commodores--sans Lionel Richie--entertained thecrowd while America's Most Wanted filmed in the background.HP's entry in the contest: Chili Con Carly.
For the benefit of us film buffs, Microsoft hosted a preview of theupcoming James Bond movie, "The World Is Not Enough." The crowd oftech press and analysts laughed, on cue, at references to the millenniumbug and applauded when the HP Jornada was spotted on actress DeniseRichards, who uses the palm-sized PC to disable a nuclear warhead.
"Denise," as one Microsoft product manager fondly referred to her, willalso do promotions for the struggling Windows CE operating system duringthe run of the movie. But apparently Microsoft and HP didn't get what theypaid for when they split the $300,000 bill to get the product placement,one insider said. In the movie, the audience only gets the faintest glimpseof the PalmPilot wannabe.
Lounging at the Paris Hotel, I nursed my hangover before hopping on ashuttle to check in on Oracle OpenWorld in Los Angeles.
The new Paris Hotel, by the way, is a story unto itself. The French arenotoriously proud of their language and ever vigilant about blocking theintrusion of English into their vocabulary. So it was with a littlesympathy, if not horror, that I watched as employees were forced toconverse with guests in grade-school French. Other atrocities:gambling-floor signs like"Le Jacque-Pot" and "Tour de slot." C'est tragique, n'est pas?
At the Oracle gathering, company execs were asked the duh.com question of theday during a Q&A with Larry Ellison: Why host OpenWorld during thesame week as Comdex? Oracle marketing honcho and diminutive man-in-blackMark Jarvis fielded the question with typical Oracle hubris: "Webooked our date before they did," he said. Never mind that Comdex has beenheld duringthe same week for about the past decade.
Other notes on OpenWorld:
• Larry delivers the samekeynote for the millionth time, complete with his routine complaint (as ifto prove his mettle as an eccentric billionaire) about turning down thelights. Reporters sigh wearily. He makes it up later with an extra livelyrant against Microsoft.
• The power of using gadgetsover the Internet: Larry pushes the button on his cell phone toautomatically make a Coke pop out of a vending machine. Magic!
• Larry admits he is aging:Peering at his cell phone, he reaches in his pocket for a pair of glasses.He notes: "Now I can see the phone!"
• High point of the show:Larry trots out L.A. Lakers star Shaquille O'Neal to supportOracle's new "NC for every child" campaign. In true Oracle fashion, the NCdoes not yet exist. Shaq mumbles something about being into technology fortwo years, asks the rich folk in the audience to buy NCs for kids, andshuffles off the stage. Larry looks like he swallowed a fish.I'm not going to ask you to buy an NC, or even a cola out of a vending machine. Just send me your rumors.