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The City Lights Reporter

 Online News Journal

November 2002 -Volume 6 Issue 4

Day - 2 

Convention Floor

Yesterday, Monday November 18th was the official opening of the convention floor for COMDEX Fall 2002.  The purpose of this series of reports is to educate minority businesses on the opportunities that can be

found and the contacts that can be made at shows like Comdex. Comdex is arguably the biggest convention in the world. All this week I will be posting reports from this major tech event with the hope of encouraging more of us to participate in industry trade shows.  As always I will be reporting with an afrocentric eye and interviewing people of color that

I meet on the convention floor. Remember, at the end of this week I will be uploading pictures of the people and products I'm reporting on to my website www.citylightssoftware.com.

The hype is that there are approximately 125,000 attendees here in Las Vegas this week. I think the truth is somewhere around 75 to 100,000. The turnout is noticeably low. Even when it comes to vendors there are less then half the booths and participants then what I have seen in the past. Comdex made its reputation on being a show that catered to manufactures, programmers, distributors, and retailers. Though sad to say, this year's show is more focused on consumer products then technology advances.  The first thing you notice is the absence of second party motherboard and component manufactures. Even when it comes to software, Unix, Bluetooth, and other cutting edge software developers

have made only a halfhearted effort in relation to past shows.

The international community is here in full force. China with its recent entry into the World Trade Organization has booked at least a third of the

convention hall. The European Union, Israel, Malaysia, the Caribbean, and Africa are all represented with major exhibits. Walt Ogundeji of

Whiz-Tech Limited (Lagos, Africa), a computer reseller, was here looking for new suppliers and equipment deals. Louise Price from the United Kingdom was here representing ImyMo (www.imymo.com), a new marketing software designed for the mobile market. Myra Mitchell of the Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation was here looking at the mobile and wireless technology.  

The surprising thing, was the number of investment bankers, venture capitalist and business consultants I just ran into on the convention floor. I guess it's a buyers market in high tech right now. Arvind Singh of A.N.S. Ventures (www.ansventures.com), Kaya Morgan of Island Connections (www.islandconnections.com) and B. Mitchell Loebel of The Tech Startup Connection were all browsing the convention floor looking for new start-ups like Personal Computing Environments (www.mypce.com). Paul De Luca, VP of marketing, told me Personal Computing Environments (PCE) was launching the new company right here at Comdex. You've got to see PCE's products. They take an ultra modern approach to ergonomic and powerful multimedia computing environments that will blow your mind <smile>.

As I said earlier, the real duel here at Comdex is between the mobile phone companies like Motorola, Sprint and Nokia promoting their consumer products and services.  Amazingly, Sprint and Nokia were side by side on the convention floor.  There was a night and day difference between the two companies approach to Comdex.  Sprint was all flash and glamour; Nokia was all business.  Both had major exhibits but where the focus of Sprint's setup was on a main stage with dancers and presenters, Nokia's was centered on their phones.  You could sit down (boy what a relief) and watch the show at Sprint's booth but you had to stand in line to get at Nokia's phones.  Nokia is behind in the advertising/PR campaigns featuring new generation phones, but you could tell at a glance Nokia was the one who's phone was more popular with the Comdex crowd. Nokia's new phones feature full motion video, hands free capabilities, speaker cradles for listing to MP3's and Java applications for business (see www.nokia.com). Nokia is attempting to demonstrate their leadership in the mobile communications field by

incorporating consumer and business applications with seamless interoperability and functionality between home electronics and IT networks.

As a software developer I was naturally drawn to Nokia's Developers Forum. Lettia Andrews (President of the Dallas chapter of the BDPA and Nokia programmer) gave me the grand tour explaining the infuses Nokia is putting on attracting talented new developers. Through it's "Tradepoint" developers program, Nokia is giving programmers all the tools necessary to create, write, and test new applications for the 3G wireless market. You can find out more information about "Tradepoint" as well as authoring software at www.forum.nokia.com/business.

The most social conscience company was by far Olympus America (www.olympus.com). Their booth was centered around their "Day In The Life Of Africa" program to raise funds to fight AIDS/HIV. What Olympus did was sponsor 100 of the worlds top photojournalists on a trip to Africa. The pictures from that excursion were compiled in a coffee table book, the sales from which go to charities that fund AIDS education in Africa.  They had some truly beautiful pictures, and I salute their efforts in this worthy cause. The book is available on their website, and Amazon.com.  Besides Olympus's fine line of quality digital cameras. I was impressed with their digital microscopes designed and priced for students and schools. And don't let me forget to give a big shout out to Iomega Corporation (www.iomega.com), makers of data storage devices like Zip drives. Their media representative not only knew the urban markets they were in, but could name sales people at Emerge and Black Enterprise. Iomega is committed to supporting the Black community by sponsoring and supporting professional and educational organizations.

Well it's that time again and I have to go. Today, I plan to spend the afternoon in Microsoft's booth (or should I say section). I think trying to review all of Microsoft's new products and services is going to be

like trying to see everything in Disneyland in one day. I've received an invitation to a special reception they're holding to recruit more minorities into the Microsoft corporate culture.  Keep your eyes open for pictures I will be posting on my website next week in the City Lights Reporter.  If there is a particular product or company you want me to report on, feel free to send me an email at jneusom@yahoo.com. I will be checking my email all day long.

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