MAC TECH TEAM  OPINION


Robert Peckham is head of the Mac Tech Team.


CONTACT robertpeckham@mac.com It's that time of year again


Robert Peckham this month calls on IDG - the US organisers of MacWorld USA - to replicate the show within Europe, or even the UK...


“Many observers thought that MacWorld Expo 2010 was likely to be the last, but attendance figures were exceptionally high, so the show will go on.”


IT SEEMS like every column I've written for this wonderful magazine has begun with ‘By the time you read this', which is then usually followed by comments like “Christmas has passed, the New Year has started, and MacWorld Expo will be in full swing”. And guess what? This one is no different. Happy New Year, by the way. MacWorld Expo -


PROFILE: Robert Peckham is a 20-year veteran of the Apple reseller channel in the UK, and has managed many major Apple resellers. He founded the Mac Technology Association and was a director of the Technology Channels Association until the recent merger with CompTIA. He runs the Mac Tech Team support consultancy and also MacTechnology.co.uk.


www.macworldexpo.com - in San Francisco is now the very last major annual gathering for Apple fans anywhere in the World, and has evidently managed to survive the bombshell in 2009 when Apple pulled out from exhibiting at the show, as they already had from every similar Mac Expo event around the World. But this also meant that Apple stopped using MacWorld Expo for major product announcements and releases as they had had in previous years, which was annoying as its new product releases in January could easily be done at Expo for all the public to see instead of just an invited audience and a webcast of Steve Jobs presenting on stage. Many observers thought that MacWorld Expo 2010, held last February, was very likely to be the last one, but attendance figures were exceptionally high, and the new Mobile Application Showcase, which focussed on iPod and iPhone applications, was a very big attraction.


So the announcement that the show was going ahead in 2011 was very good news indeed, and now that the iPad has arrived, the Mobile Applications focus for 2011 will be even bigger and will draw in even more visitors. It’s also very likely that Apple will announce the


much-rumoured 'iPad Mini' with a seven inch display around the time of this show, which will certainly add a significant boost to the attendance. But, what is most impressive about MacWorld is the unprecedented level of support the show receives from vendors, manufacturers and software publishers who service the Mac channel. The list of confirmed exhibitors goes


on for many pages, and apart from the large number of major corporate companies attending, including Xerox, Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard and Seagate, the show will be crammed with hundreds of smaller, more specialist and niche vendors with truly innovative and interesting products, all of which makes the show unmissable, especially as many of these companies don’t currently operate outside the USA. So, the question begs asking, why can’t a similar show be organised for Europe, preferably in the UK? It’s three years since the mighty Reed Exhibitions staged MacWorld Expo in Paris for the last time, so I believe the time is now right for IDG – the US organisers of MacWorld Expo – to consider attempting to replicate the success of Expo in the USA here in Europe. Perhaps after their show in January


they might like to consider doing exactly this, and I'll be the first in line to add my support to the project.


www.pcr–online.biz


January PCR 79


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