Wireless 2000 was the place to be. It was the place where dot-com met wireless, and that made it the single-most noteworthy and newsmaking event of the week in the worldwide technology arena.
I thought the show was great. Great speakers, great sessions, great exhibits, great networking.
We live in this world where most everyone seems to be striving for more. More house, more car, more money, more vacation, more prestige, more technology, more trade show … It seems the only thing that people consistently want less of is their waistline.
Last week I was complaining about not having any chocolate from companies trying to woo me to their booths, but I also know that too much chocolate can give you a stomachache. I definitely have a post-show stomach ache.
Just how much great is too much?
With concurrent high-profile events spread throughout the three-day show, it was not only a challenge for those of us in the media to keep up with the pace; attendees, speakers and exhibitors were running, too. Last-minute schedule changes didn’t help. Each year I wonder how this show can get any larger, and each year it does.
We hear more and more murmurs of companies planning to drop out of the industry’s other trade show held in the fall because two big industry trade shows each year are just one too many. Can one trade show really be all things to all people? As great as this show was, I don’t think it can be. Even great things have to be manageable.
I have said it before and I’ll say it again. No one is really sure yet where this Information Superhighway really is headed as far as the wireless industry is concerned. Many are saying wireless is the vehicle that will finally make the Internet truly profitable. That may be true.
New Orleans was a magnet for a plethora of Internet, data and e-commerce companies last week-all ready to ride the wireless wave. How many of these companies will survive the shake-out going up against the likes of AOL, AT&T and Microsoft? Does a Wireless dot-com trade show independent of all-else wireless make sense, or once the merger feeding frenzy is over will we only be left with a handful of large players in this arena anyway-as continues to be the case in the telecom world?
I am not sure what the answer is. I do know that there was a lot of other stuff happening at CTIA’s Wireless 2000 besides dot-com news, and some of those others were more than mildly irritated about the almost singular focus on data and the Internet.
Maybe we should still have two trade shows: Wireless Dot-com and Everything Else Wireless.
