Opinion: Apple at the Expo: What went wrong?
The show is being treated 'like a piece of garbage,' says Macworld's Jason Snell
Macworld - Tuesday's news that Apple had announced that Steve Jobs wouldn't be appearing at Macworld Expo and that the company would stop exhibiting at the show after 2009 came as a shock. I'm stunned that Apple has taken a 25-year-old event that has been the single best meeting place for the entire community of users and vendors of Apple-related products and treated it like a piece of garbage stuck to the bottom of its shoe. But I'm not really surprised: Apple has been leading up to this moment for a long time now.
(Before I continue, a bit of disclosure. The company that I work for, Mac Publishing, does not run Macworld Expo. The company that runs Macworld Expo is IDG World Expo, a separate company that shares the Macworld brand name with Mac Publishing and shares the same corporate parent -- International Data Group. IDG's corporate structure splits different businesses into different companies, each with its own budgets and management teams. So while I'm the editor of Macworld, my business doesn't actually receive any money from the operations of Macworld Expo and isn't judged by the financial results of Macworld Expo. However, the owner of my business is the owner of its business, so we're cousins in the same corporate family.)
The timing of the announcement stinks. It's three weeks before the Expo keynote, and now Apple has decided to announce its plans not just for the keynote, but for the 2010 show? Why now? My guess is that the first announcement required the second. Imagine if Apple merely announced that Steve Jobs wouldn't be appearing at Macworld Expo. Immediately, the Steve-Jobs-health speculation machine would whip into action. Jobs not appearing at Macworld Expo would be used as fodder to fuel a million different pieces wondering about Apple's CEO.
The announcement of Apple's "final appearance" in 2009 dulls that speculation a little bit. It won't go away -- if you picked "three" in the pool to see how many comments it would take for someone in our story thread to speculate about Steve Jobs' health, you win -- but in making that second announcement, Apple has changed the story from one about Steve Jobs' non-appearance into one about the death of Macworld Expo.
I don't know anything about Steve Jobs' health. And I really do hate idle speculation about the health of a human being. (Though I do believe that if he's terminally ill, the shareholders ought to be informed. Otherwise, it's nobody's business but his own.) Who knows the real reason for the exit of Jobs from the keynote? There are a nearly unlimited number of reasons that don't involve the man's medical history. Maybe there simply weren't any Earth-shattering products ready. Maybe someone at IDG offended someone at Apple. Maybe a product that was intended for release at the Expo has been delayed, either for technical reasons or because today's economy would make it a bad time to launch a new product.
End of an era: Macworld 2009
- Jobs blames 'hormone imbalance' for weight loss
- Five things Apple needs to do at Macworld
- Seth Weintraub: Macworld 2009 Predictions - Cheating Spoiler edition
- Seth: Apple to pioneer use of Silver-Zinc battery technology?
- Seth: Rumor says Apple's iMovie to receive significant (Cloud) update at Macworld
- A fan's notes: Macworld without Apple
- Opinion: Apple at the Expo: What went wrong?
- Apple community in a post-Macworld world
- Macworld 2009 Liveblog - Jobsless rate: 100%



- Excel 2010 Cheat Sheet
- Register for this Computerworld Insider Cheat Sheet and gain access to hundreds of premium content articles, guides, product reviews and more.
- Overcome Top 7 Admin Challenges of Active Directory
- As Active Directory's role in the enterprise has drastically increased, so has the need to secure the data. Gain insight on creating repeatable,...
- Insiders Can Ruin Your Company. Take Action.
- Did you know that 80 percent of threats to an organization come from the inside? The threat from insiders is often overlooked in...
- Smarter Commerce is redefining value chain visibility
- Smarter Commerce is redefining the value chain in the age of the customer. It starts with putting the customer at the center of...
- Identity Governance: The Business Imperatives
- This white paper describes the business challenges and opportunities that are driving interest in Identity Governance while discussing considerations your organization should make...
- The Executive Buyer's Guide to Project Portfolio Management
- The Innotas Executive Buyer's Guide provides you with a concise overview of Project Portfolio Management (PPM) and delivers important buying criteria to help... All Management and Careers White Papers
- Live Webcast
Integrated IT Operations Management in the Cloud - Join award-winning technology editor Stan Gibson and Andrew White, CMO at Numara Software, to learn how asset management and service management are converging...
- Integrated IT Operations Management in the Cloud
- Join award-winning technology editor Stan Gibson and Andrew White, CMO at Numara Software, to learn how asset management and service management are converging...
- Optimizing Networks for the Cloud
- Join guest speaker, Rohit Mehra, IDC Director of Enterprise Communications Infrastructure, to explore current trends, discuss best practices for optimizing Data Center and...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 2: Designing and Deploying SQL Server on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn about the design considerations for virtualizing SQL workloads, performance and scalability information and high-availability options, as well as...
- Apps QuickStart Series Part 1: Designing and Deploying Exchange 2010 on VMware vSphere
- Download this webcast to learn the virtual hardware design considerations for Exchange 2010, deployment using the building block approach, options for high-availability and...
- Customer Spotlight: How IPC The Hospitalist Company Implemented Oracle on VMware
- Have you been looking to hear about customer's experiences with the new VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager product? View this webcast to learn... All Management and Careers Webcasts