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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech

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Speaker 1: are you? It is time for a tech Stuff classic episode.

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Speaker 1: This episode originally published March twenty second, twenty seventeen. It

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Speaker 1: is titled the Story of Comdex. There are a few

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Speaker 1: the tech related conferences and trade shows that have happened

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Speaker 1: over the years. Comdex was a really important one for

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Speaker 1: a while, and now we're going to learn more about it. Enjoy.

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Speaker 1: This message is from Alex, and Alex said, I really

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Speaker 1: enjoy listening to your episodes on CEES and also listening

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Speaker 1: to the shows that you broadcast every year from CEES,

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Speaker 1: and it got me to thinking about two decades ago,

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Speaker 1: there was a popular trade show called Comdex, which is

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Speaker 1: not around anymore. I've always wondered what happened to Comdex

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Speaker 1: and why it failed as a trade show. I know

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Speaker 1: that some famous things happen at Comdex. The blue screen

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Speaker 1: of Death coming up on Bill Gates during a Windows

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Speaker 1: ninety eight demonstration comes to mind. Thanks for making such

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Speaker 1: a great show. Well, thank you, Alex for those kind

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Speaker 1: words and for the suggestion. Guys, remember you can always

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Speaker 1: write me to make suggestions for show topics or guests

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Speaker 1: I should have on the show, or even if you

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Speaker 1: just want to say hi. The email address you can

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Speaker 1: use is tech stuff at houstuffworks dot com. I'll mention

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Speaker 1: that again at the end of the show, but I

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Speaker 1: know some of you tune out before I get to that,

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Speaker 1: So that's what you can use as an email if

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Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with me. Now, let's

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Speaker 1: talk about Comdex and its impact on the tech industry.

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Speaker 1: I can't just jump right onto condex though, I actually

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Speaker 1: have to go back a little bit, and I also

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Speaker 1: have to admit this was a surprisingly challenging topic. There's

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Speaker 1: not a whole lot written about Comdex as a whole,

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Speaker 1: apart from some articles in computer industry magazines from the

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Speaker 1: time that usually focused on either an upcoming show, like

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Speaker 1: you know, you might read an article in a magazine

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Speaker 1: from nineteen eighty seven about Comdex eighty seven being around

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Speaker 1: the corner, or you might see an article that is

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Speaker 1: talking about just a show that just ended, kind of

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Speaker 1: similar to how people cover cees. Right, that'll be an

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Speaker 1: article that says, oh, hey, ces is over here what

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Speaker 1: the big trends were. But you don't really find a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of stuff about the life and death of

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Speaker 1: the show as a whole. You have to find bits

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Speaker 1: and pieces and then end up putting it all together

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Speaker 1: and forming it into a meaningful narrative. So this episode

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Speaker 1: is really the result of hours of research. I had

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Speaker 1: to piece everything together myself. So typically for every hour

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Speaker 1: of podcasts that I print, it takes about eight hours

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Speaker 1: of research. That's typical. This one was way more than that.

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Speaker 1: It had to be at least twenty hours of research,

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Speaker 1: maybe more in order to get all of this. But

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Speaker 1: that's enough stalling. Let's talk about comdex. So back in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, which is, by the way, many years before

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Speaker 1: comdex actually officially began, there was a group of entrepreneurs

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Speaker 1: based out of Needham, Massachusetts, and they included Robert Bob

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Speaker 1: Lively and Milton Burns, and they created a magazine covering

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Speaker 1: the world of computers and data communications. And the name

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Speaker 1: of that publication was The Data comm User, and datacom

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Speaker 1: was one word and two ms at the end of comm.

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Speaker 1: This was before the era of the personal computer. It

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Speaker 1: was even before the era that you would be able

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Speaker 1: to purchase a kit and make your own personal computer.

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Speaker 1: This was the era of many computers and micro computers

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Speaker 1: that were only meant for business or research purposes, so

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Speaker 1: you didn't really see them in the home, but they

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Speaker 1: were able to create a successful magazine. In two years

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Speaker 1: after they launched it, the publishers partnered with a different person,

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Speaker 1: a future casino magnate Sheldon Gary Adelson, to launch a

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Speaker 1: new trade show that they were calling the Interface Conference

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Speaker 1: and Exposition. Now Edelson is or Adelson is an interesting person,

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Speaker 1: someone of great influence both in Las Vegas and in politics.

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Speaker 1: He would eventually go on to build one of the

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Speaker 1: premium casinos on the Strip, the Venetian. Anyway, after several

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Speaker 1: successful years of running the Interface Conference and Exposition, the

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Speaker 1: group saw another opportunity. So it's nineteen seventy nine. The

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Speaker 1: computer industry was starting to gain some traction, with the

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Speaker 1: home PC market mostly stuck in the world of hobbyists

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Speaker 1: and early adopters. By seventy nine, it was starting to

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Speaker 1: slowly emerge from that market, but it wasn't yet to

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Speaker 1: the point where computers were becoming household objects. It was

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Speaker 1: fairly rare to run into homes that had won. They

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Speaker 1: were expensive, and there just weren't a whole lot out there.

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Speaker 1: You're talking about early Apple computers, you're talking about the

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Speaker 1: Commodore sixty four, the Tandy, that kind of stuff. More companies, though,

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Speaker 1: were really looking into incorporating computers into the workplace. So

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Speaker 1: the Interface Group organized a new event, and this was

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Speaker 1: called the Computer Dealer's Exhibition, which was later shortened to

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Speaker 1: the name Comdex. Now, that nineteen seventy nine show was

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Speaker 1: modest by later standards, and modest is kind of overstating it.

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Speaker 1: It was tiny compared to the show when it reached

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Speaker 1: its peak. It took place in the MGM Grand in

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Speaker 1: Las Veigs, I guess, and that was the MGM Grand

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Speaker 1: at the time. The MGM Grand of today is not

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Speaker 1: the same building as the one from nineteen seventy nine,

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Speaker 1: two totally different places. Approximately four thousand people attended the show,

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Speaker 1: with about one hundred and fifty seven exhibitors present. Now,

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Speaker 1: in those days only industry representatives could attend, so you

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Speaker 1: had to be inside the computer industry in order to

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Speaker 1: be considered for attendance. So general public was not allowed

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Speaker 1: to go into the show. It's very similar to the

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Speaker 1: way CEES is run, and for many years E three

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Speaker 1: ran that way. Although E three twenty seventeen, which is

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm recording this in twenty seventeen. E three

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Speaker 1: twenty seventeen is the first time in several years that

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Speaker 1: the show is going to be open to the general public,

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Speaker 1: assuming that you were able to get a badge in time.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to be at E three this year, so

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Speaker 1: that will be interesting. I can't wait to see how

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Speaker 1: it's different from the years past that I have attended

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Speaker 1: when it was industry only anyway, Condex when it started

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Speaker 1: only allowed industry members and and it really didn't look

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Speaker 1: at any of the personal computer stuff at all, because

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Speaker 1: again that was such a young market. It was really

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Speaker 1: looking at the business applications for computers. So if you

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Speaker 1: visit Las Vegas and you go to the MGM Grand,

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Speaker 1: like I said, that's not the same casino as the

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Speaker 1: one that hosted the first Comdex. If you want to

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Speaker 1: visit the building where the first Comdex took place, you

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Speaker 1: actually have to go to Bally's because that's what the

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Speaker 1: old MGM Grand turned into. So a walk through Bally's

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Speaker 1: Casino is also a walk through computer history in a way,

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Speaker 1: and they really did focus on many computers, which were

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Speaker 1: named Many, but were honestly pretty huge machines to be fair,

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Speaker 1: the original computers that came out, those were the ones

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Speaker 1: that took up like an entire room or sometimes the

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Speaker 1: floor of a building like. They were huge, huge machines.

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Speaker 1: Those first computers, the ones that date all the way

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Speaker 1: back to like the forties and fifties, but the mini

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Speaker 1: computers of the seventies were still pretty massive machines. And

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Speaker 1: again they were meant for corporate use or manufacturing or

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Speaker 1: things like that. They weren't meant to be on your

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Speaker 1: table at home, so they're industrial computers. Almost all the

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Speaker 1: interactions at Comdex were all about business to business, with

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Speaker 1: computer manufacturers courting big corporations like insurance companies and law firms.

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Speaker 1: So really, if you might represent a computer manufacturer, and

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Speaker 1: what you're trying to do is get that representative from

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Speaker 1: that big insurance company to come see your stuff and say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to put in an order

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Speaker 1: for X number of machines for us to use at

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Speaker 1: our corporate office. That was kind of the purpose for Comdex,

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Speaker 1: So it wasn't the sort of convention that the average

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Speaker 1: computer junkie would even want to attend that first comdex.

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Speaker 1: If you are a big computer nerd, you probably still

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Speaker 1: would not be too keen on that first Comdex because

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Speaker 1: it just it was geared toward a different type of person.

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Speaker 1: It's more for business now. Exhibitors also attended shows like

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Speaker 1: Comdex for another reason, not just to connect with potential customers,

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Speaker 1: They also wanted to see what the competition was up to.

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Speaker 1: Keep in mind, these trade shows allowed companies to show

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Speaker 1: off stuff that was in development, stuff that had not

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Speaker 1: yet hit the market. That meant that if you were

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Speaker 1: a competitor, you might get a look at someone's products

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Speaker 1: before they actually hit store shelves, and if you are able,

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Speaker 1: you might be able to suss out how those products

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Speaker 1: are working and figure out your own version of that

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Speaker 1: same product. It's not quite the same thing as copying

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Speaker 1: someone else. It might involve some reverse engineering, not a

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Speaker 1: little ethically questionable, but it certainly was something that happened

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Speaker 1: all the time. If a competitor's computers incorporated a new

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Speaker 1: feature that you saw, customers were really finding to be compelling.

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Speaker 1: You might go back to your team and say, hey,

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Speaker 1: competitor X has this new peripheral and people are going

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Speaker 1: gaga over it. We've got to create something equal to

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Speaker 1: or better than that for our products. So it's really

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Speaker 1: just a fuel for competition. And just like CEES gives

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Speaker 1: rise to certain trends each year, so did comdex. So

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Speaker 1: another reason why companies would attend is to see what

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Speaker 1: trends are starting to come up and should there be

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Speaker 1: some that the company needs to get involved in, they

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Speaker 1: could end up dedicating some resources to it and then

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Speaker 1: become a player in that space. The worst thing in

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Speaker 1: the world would be to be left behind and become

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Speaker 1: obsolete and see your company's business failed because you weren't

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Speaker 1: able to capitalize on an emerging trend. So some companies

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Speaker 1: would send people out there just to see, all right, well,

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Speaker 1: what's big this year and what do we need to

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Speaker 1: pay attention to, So it really was all about business now.

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Speaker 1: The event was a success, and the group planned a

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Speaker 1: second event for nineteen eighty and this one took place

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Speaker 1: in the Las Vegas Convention Center. It had outgrown the

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Speaker 1: MGM Grand but a few attendees were staying at the

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Speaker 1: MGM Grand. That's just that was the place where they

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Speaker 1: had booked a room, but the show had already outgrown

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Speaker 1: the conference rooms there. The new venue boasted twenty five

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Speaker 1: thousand square feet of exhibition space, and more than seven

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Speaker 1: thousand people attended the show, so they nearly doubled in size. Now,

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Speaker 1: that was the first year for the show to use

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Speaker 1: Comdex as a name, and it was also a tragic year.

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Speaker 1: Something really disastrous happened that year. On the very last

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Speaker 1: day of the Comdex conference, a fire broke out in

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Speaker 1: the MGM Grand overnight, and it was a serious fire,

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Speaker 1: and more than eighty people died, most of them from

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Speaker 1: smoke inhalation because the smoke went up into the rooms

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Speaker 1: and a lot of people were asleep and they never

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Speaker 1: woke up. Out of those eighty people, eight of them

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Speaker 1: were attending Comdex, and the tragedy marks the worst disaster

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Speaker 1: in Nevada history and the third worst hotel fire in

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Speaker 1: US history. The cause of the fire was ultimately traced

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Speaker 1: to an electrical ground fault in a wall socket. They

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Speaker 1: had a nearby cooling unit for a pastry display case

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Speaker 1: that had a pair of copper pipes that were exposed.

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Speaker 1: The insulation had worn down. The copper pipes had been

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Speaker 1: vibrating at times, and that vibration had caused the pipes

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Speaker 1: to rub together. The insulation protecting the pipes worn away,

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Speaker 1: which meant that they could rub against each other, and

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Speaker 1: this eventually caused the short, the electrical short, which then

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Speaker 1: caused a fire. The fire spread very quickly and it

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Speaker 1: was a huge story both in Las Vegas and in

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Speaker 1: the computer industry. Now, despite this tragedy, the conference continued

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Speaker 1: and grew. It was on that last day of the conference.

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Speaker 1: The following year it was even bigger. You would actually

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Speaker 1: see Comdex expand to two shows in that year. So

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Speaker 1: in the springtime, the organization launched a Comdex show in

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Speaker 1: New York. The fall show stayed in Las Vegas. So

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Speaker 1: they were splitting up to two shows a year, with

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Speaker 1: one on the East Coast and one in Las Vegas.

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Speaker 1: The New York show was a big success. It was

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Speaker 1: more than twice as big as the first Comdex show

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Speaker 1: in Vegas. It had eleven thousand attendees and two hundred

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Speaker 1: and thirty seven exhibitors. That Vegas show happened in the fall,

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Speaker 1: and this was huge business, not just for the exhibitors

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Speaker 1: and the attending professionals, but also for the organizers themselves.

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Speaker 1: They were making a huge amount of profit. At its peak,

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Speaker 1: Condex could command fifty nine dollars per square foot of

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Speaker 1: exhibit space, and when it was the biggest trade show around,

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Speaker 1: there was more than one point three million square feet available,

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Speaker 1: and Comdex staffers were really really pushing for companies to

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Speaker 1: end up leasing that space, so they were making bookoos

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Speaker 1: of dollars serious cash just so they a company can

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Speaker 1: rent some carpeted floor. Yeah, if you want to read

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Speaker 1: some vitriol about Condex, just do some searches about how

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Speaker 1: much money the organizers were making back in these days,

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Speaker 1: and how a lot of the exhibitors felt that they

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Speaker 1: were being almost like extorted in order to rent larger

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Speaker 1: and larger spaces year over year, like they were being

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Speaker 1: pressured by staffers who were acting like salesmen to rent

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Speaker 1: more space each successful year. It's one of the reasons

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Speaker 1: why some companies said that they ultimately abandoned the show.

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Speaker 1: Well back in nineteen eighty one, the show was still growing,

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Speaker 1: just as the computer industry was growing and holding two

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Speaker 1: shows ended up working out with the Spring Show in

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Speaker 1: New York and the Fall Show in Las Vegas. So

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two they expanded again, and this time

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Speaker 1: there were three shows. The Spring event occurred in Atlantic

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Speaker 1: City aka the Las Vegas of the East Coast, and

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Speaker 1: the Fall Show happened in Las Vegas. But there was

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Speaker 1: a third show that happened in Europe and it took

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Speaker 1: place in Amsterdam. That marked the beginning of Condex expanding

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Speaker 1: beyond the United Stas States. Now that trend would continue

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Speaker 1: and snowball over the following years. So you start looking

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Speaker 1: at the number of shows Condex was holding year over year,

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Speaker 1: and it kept on increasing. In two thousand and two,

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Speaker 1: there were eighteen Condex shows scheduled throughout that year, eighteen

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Speaker 1: different events across the globe in two thousand and two. Now,

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Speaker 1: one of those, the one that was scheduled for Mexico City,

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Speaker 1: ended up getting canceled, but that still means there were

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Speaker 1: seventeen shows in two thousand and two. I mean, that's

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Speaker 1: think about how many resources you would have to dedicate

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Speaker 1: to hold that many events around the world. All right,

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Speaker 1: But back to the nineteen eighties, So after those first

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Speaker 1: few years when everyone was concentrating on many computers and

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Speaker 1: business to business type stuff, personal computers began to play

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Speaker 1: a role in shows because they were starting to take off.

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Speaker 1: People were starting to purchase personal computers at a larger rate,

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Speaker 1: was going beyond the hobbyist and beyond the early adopter,

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Speaker 1: and so it became part of comdex history. He started

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Speaker 1: seeing computers like the Apple two E and the first

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Speaker 1: IBM compatible computers. First you saw the IBM computers, and

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Speaker 1: then shortly after that you saw the IBM clones that

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Speaker 1: were making their way to market. And you also had

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Speaker 1: other computers like the Commodore sixty four, the Tandy computer,

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Speaker 1: and the Amiga line of computers which originally came from

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Speaker 1: Commodore as well. And one of these days I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: have to do a full show about Tandy, I think,

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Speaker 1: because it's hard to believe that a company that started

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Speaker 1: off as a leather goods company got into the personal

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Speaker 1: computer business. And for that matter, I should probably talk

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Speaker 1: about IBM compatibles and clones too, as that was a big,

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Speaker 1: big deal early on in the personal computer age and

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Speaker 1: one of the reasons why IBM got out of the

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Speaker 1: consumer computer market. Entirely for many years. But the important thing,

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Speaker 1: the important thing to remember in this part of the

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Speaker 1: Comdex story is that these companies were becoming important enough

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Speaker 1: to warrant a spot on the show floor. By nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty three, Condex started holding a show in Atlanta, that

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Speaker 1: is the city where I am in. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia,

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Speaker 1: so I remember Condex being talked about. I was a

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Speaker 1: kid in the eighties and I never attended a Comdex,

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Speaker 1: but I remember people talking about them, and the show

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Speaker 1: in Atlanta would continue yearly until nineteen ninety six, and

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Speaker 1: at that point Condex began to alternate between Atlanta and

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Speaker 1: Chicago every year. So I probably would have been pretty

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Speaker 1: bored if I had gone to one of the comdexes

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Speaker 1: in Atlanta. I mean, these shows were huge, and there

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Speaker 1: were lots of booths and everything, but again it was

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Speaker 1: mostly about like productivity machines and software, and not really

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Speaker 1: the kind of stuff I was interested in, which was

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Speaker 1: namely computer games. You didn't really see a whole lot

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Speaker 1: of that Condex because that's just not what the focus

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Speaker 1: of the show was about. Also, in nineteen eighty three,

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Speaker 1: I love this Bill Gates gave his first speech at

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Speaker 1: a Comdex in nineteen eighty three, and that would become

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Speaker 1: a regular event over future shows, and Gates would end

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Speaker 1: up getting larger audiences every year. He would command a

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Speaker 1: bigger room every year. It obviously became a much more

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Speaker 1: important event in future comdexes, but back in nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: three it was rather modest in comparison, so much so

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Speaker 1: that the projectionist for Bill Gates's presentation was his own father.

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Speaker 1: I just think that's kind of a charming little bit

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Speaker 1: of information. Well, I've got more to say about what

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Speaker 1: happened to Comdex in the nineteen eighties, but before I

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Speaker 1: get into that, let's take a quick break to thank

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Speaker 1: our sponsor. All right, So a couple of big events

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Speaker 1: happened in the early nineteen eighties that rippled through Comdex.

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Speaker 1: For one thing, the Macintosh debuted in nineteen eighty four,

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Speaker 1: and that's when the graphics user interface, or GUY, became

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Speaker 1: big in home personal computers. The Windows system Microsoft Windows

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Speaker 1: also made a big splash around that same time, and

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Speaker 1: Microsoft and Apple had worked together developing a GUY. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't exactly you might hear stories about, Oh well, Windows

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Speaker 1: was just copying the mac os. It's not entirely true. Actually,

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Speaker 1: the two companies were working together to develop Guy's and

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Speaker 1: to be fair, the graphic user interface wasn't developed out

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Speaker 1: of Apple or Microsoft. The graphic user Interface originated as

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Speaker 1: a project out of Xerox Park, But that's another story

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Speaker 1: for another time. The graphics user Interface, however, was changing

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Speaker 1: computers because it was seen as a much more intuitive,

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Speaker 1: easy to understand system than command line systems. So in

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Speaker 1: the old days, if you wanted to run a program

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Speaker 1: on your computer, you had to type in run in

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Speaker 1: the program name, and then the computer would know to

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Speaker 1: execute that command and start that program. You might have

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Speaker 1: some programs that had an auto startup based upon the

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Speaker 1: disc that you were using, and that would make things

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Speaker 1: a little more smooth. But until the graphics user interface

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Speaker 1: came along, you couldn't just click on an icon and

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Speaker 1: have something start. You actually had to type stuff in,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't exactly user friendly for people who weren't

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Speaker 1: already interested in computers, so it was sort of a

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Speaker 1: barrier to entry. The graphic user interface lowered that barrier,

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Speaker 1: and that's really when we started seeing personal computers take off,

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Speaker 1: not just for homes, but in schools and all sorts

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Speaker 1: of places. So the Macintosh and the Windows system were

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Speaker 1: really important, and they dominated the show floor. By nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty five, everyone was talking about Windows based systems and

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Speaker 1: graphic user interfaces. And it's funny because if you look

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Speaker 1: back on these early comdex shows, you can see the

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Speaker 1: debut of stuff that we all take for granted now,

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Speaker 1: stuff that you know well of course that exists. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: we're looking at debuts from stuff that's completely obsolete at

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Speaker 1: this point. So if you are able to find videos

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Speaker 1: from that era and you watch them, it's almost comical

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Speaker 1: to see them debut because it's ancient history now in

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Speaker 1: the computer world. One of the resources I used when

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Speaker 1: researching this show was an episode of The Computer Chronicles

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Speaker 1: from nineteen eighty six. So at the beginning of that episode,

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Speaker 1: the CEO of Digital Research talked about how applications had

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Speaker 1: suddenly become important, So he was referring to programs like

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Speaker 1: desktop publishing software or spreadsheet management programs, things like that,

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Speaker 1: and that they were taking center stage because they were

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Speaker 1: taking advantage of this graphic user interface. It's really similar

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Speaker 1: in a way to how smartphone apps have become a

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Speaker 1: major focus in the tech industry. Today. The hardware is

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Speaker 1: still important, but a lot more attention is going towards

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Speaker 1: the software running on top of the hardware. Well. Condex

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00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:13,960
Speaker 1: was also where companies could show off new products like

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Speaker 1: laser printers, which in the eighties were super super new

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Speaker 1: and exciting, or computer peripherals, or computer systems and software packages.

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Speaker 1: And because the industry was heating up, the show just

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Speaker 1: kept getting larger and more grandiose every year. And it

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Speaker 1: wasn't long before companies began employing young women to entice

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Speaker 1: people into booths. And I saw one journalist's account of

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Speaker 1: an early nineteen eighties Condex that dismissively referred to these

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Speaker 1: women as demo dollies. Now at cees, you tend to

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Speaker 1: hear these women being referred to as booth babes, and

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Speaker 1: I just like to take a moment to address this

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Speaker 1: because it bugs me. So as I get older, I

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Speaker 1: get more uncomfortable with these terms. And that's because they

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Speaker 1: ignore the fact that these women are human beings. Many

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Speaker 1: of them may be hired because of their appearance. You know.

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Speaker 1: It might be that they have a modeling agency and

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Speaker 1: a company hires them because of their profile and the

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Speaker 1: modeling agency, and so it's completely based on their appearance.

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Speaker 1: But it doesn't change the fact that we're talking about

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Speaker 1: actual people here. I'm not a fan of companies using

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Speaker 1: sex appeal to get people to pay attention to their stuff,

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Speaker 1: particularly if we're talking about products that have nothing to

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00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:36,840
Speaker 1: do with being sexy in the first place. But the

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Speaker 1: women and men too, because we see male models also

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Speaker 1: being pulled in for this duty, especially for things like

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Speaker 1: wearables and sports type of technology. At places like ces,

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00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:53,280
Speaker 1: we see both women and men who are you know,

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Speaker 1: chiseled from marble showing these off. But that makes sense,

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00:24:57,280 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: you understand, right, all right, This person is fit and

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Speaker 1: the product is promising to help you get fit, so

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00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 1: you see the connection there. It's a little more tough

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Speaker 1: if you're like, this is a case for a smartphone

400
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 1: and this woman wearing barely anything is holding the case.

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00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:20,359
Speaker 1: It's a little harder to justify. I don't hold it

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00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:22,879
Speaker 1: against the models. They're doing a job. They were hired

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Speaker 1: to do a job, and that's what they're doing. And

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Speaker 1: I also realize that my opinions are just my own,

405
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Speaker 1: and that I'm probably being a bit too old fashioned

406
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: but my main point is just to remember these are people,

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Speaker 1: not just a walking, talking display. So I hate terms

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00:25:38,960 --> 00:25:41,800
Speaker 1: like booth babes or demo dollies, which I think is

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Speaker 1: even somehow worse than booth babes because it is so dismissive.

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Speaker 1: It's treating a person like an object. It truly is objectification,

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Speaker 1: and I don't care for that. So old man lecture

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00:25:56,720 --> 00:26:01,360
Speaker 1: is over. But seriously, demo dollies come on anyway. By

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Speaker 1: the mid nineteen eighties, companies creating IBM compatible machines had

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00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:09,400
Speaker 1: pretty much run IBM out of the consumer PC business.

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Speaker 1: The clones of IBM's machines were perfectly legal as long

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Speaker 1: as the company's making them could demonstrate that they didn't

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Speaker 1: steal IBM's approach but rather reverse engineered it, which seems

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Speaker 1: like a pretty fine detail, but it's one that made

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Speaker 1: the production of IBM clones completely legal. More on that

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Speaker 1: if I ever do a full episode about IBM compatible

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Speaker 1: computers now. Watching the Computer Chronicles also reminded me how

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Speaker 1: the industry at that time was dominated by dudes. You know,

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties, if you looked at the show

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Speaker 1: floor for Comdex, men outnumbered women, by an enormous percentage.

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Speaker 1: Apart from the women who were hired to lure people

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Speaker 1: into booths, you hardly saw any females on the floor

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00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 1: at all. But as the industry would make sured, we

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Speaker 1: saw more women taking roles in the industry, including leadership roles.

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00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: But I'm pretty sure those early CONDEX shows saw really

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Speaker 1: long lines at the men's room and like almost completely

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00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 1: empty women's restrooms, so an interesting juxtaposition and other compared

432
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: to other arenas. The same thing was true of Consumer

433
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:25,119
Speaker 1: Electronics Show, and in fact, I would argue it's still

434
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:30,560
Speaker 1: largely true. We're seeing more and more women on the

435
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:36,360
Speaker 1: show floor at cees, both in leadership positions and attendees

436
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, but I think it's still far

437
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: more men than women. But the early days of CONDEX,

438
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 1: it was ridiculous that imbalance. One of the most amusing

439
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: elements of the Computer Chronicles episode I watched was the

440
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:59,119
Speaker 1: segment dedicated to portable computers. So back in the nineteen eighties,

441
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: this was nineteen eight those devices were huge, largely because

442
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: they had to have five and a quarter inch floppy

443
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 1: disk drives, because that was the main media of choice

444
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 1: in the mid eighties. The laptops, even the light ones,

445
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 1: weighed somewhere around twelve pounds or more, so they were

446
00:28:17,800 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 1: hefty enough that you wouldn't want them on your lap

447
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:22,679
Speaker 1: for very long. You'd also probably chuckle at hearing some

448
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:27,159
Speaker 1: of the processor speeds being promoted back in those days.

449
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 1: You hear something like this processor has sixteen mega hurtz

450
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: processor speed, and that's probably not going to impress you

451
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 1: very much today, but you know different time. Another interesting

452
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:43,640
Speaker 1: product that was introduced and featured in that show was

453
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: from Phillips. It was a data storage system that consisted

454
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: of twenty different discs arranged in a case. The discs

455
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 1: were in cartridges, and a mechanical arm could go up

456
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: or down the rack of cartridges and retrieve or insert

457
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 1: discs to access the information on them. Now, each disk

458
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: was twelve inches in diameter, and each disc could hold

459
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 1: two whole gigabytes of information on it, which meant that

460
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 1: the entire apparatus could hold forty gigabytes. So think about

461
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: that for a moment. They're smartphones right now that can

462
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: hold more than three times that amount of information, and

463
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:21,560
Speaker 1: those will fit in your pocket. So we've really come

464
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 1: a long way since the nineteen eighties. We're going to

465
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 1: take a quick break in the story of context to

466
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 1: thank our sponsors, but we'll be right back. The nineteen

467
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 1: eighty six condext show also had some of the earliest

468
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:46,479
Speaker 1: devices that we would put into the wearable category today.

469
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 1: Puma showed off a gadget that snapped onto their running

470
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:54,719
Speaker 1: shoes and it had a microprocessor inside of it that

471
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:58,280
Speaker 1: could detect whenever your foot made impact with the ground,

472
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: and it acted as a step counter, so you could

473
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 1: use it on a run and you could do your run,

474
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 1: and then after you were done running, you would have

475
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: to go back home and you would have to use

476
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:12,640
Speaker 1: a cable to hook the gadget up to your computer

477
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,680
Speaker 1: and pull the data off of the device so that

478
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 1: you could look at it through the software running on

479
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 1: your computer. That would give you a visualization of the data,

480
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: and then you could see how far you ran and

481
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 1: how many calories you burned. It's not quite as easy

482
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 1: as connecting everything via Bluetooth, which is typically how it

483
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 1: happens today, but it was a hint of what would

484
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 1: follow almost thirty years later. Other emerging technologies that began

485
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 1: to pop up at Comdex in the early to mid

486
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties included voice recognition, optical discs so CDs, and

487
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: things like that, three and a half inch floppy disks

488
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 1: and others, and we began to see the interesting seesaw

489
00:30:52,960 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: relationship between hardware and software. So if you read articles

490
00:30:57,040 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: from the nineteen eighties about Condex, you'll see journalists point

491
00:30:59,880 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: out out that these incredibly powerful computers that were hitting

492
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 1: the market didn't have any software that took advantage of

493
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:10,960
Speaker 1: all that raw power. They'd say like, well, yeah, you

494
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:13,959
Speaker 1: can get this super fast machine, but what good is that.

495
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no software that really takes advantage of

496
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: this machine's capabilities. We're never going to see that happen.

497
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 1: I mean, it'll run existing software faster, so if you've

498
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:25,600
Speaker 1: got like a huge spreadsheet, it won't take as long

499
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: for it to load. But other than that, I mean,

500
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:32,760
Speaker 1: why would you need all that power? Now, it's kind

501
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 1: of funny to think that a three eighty six processor

502
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 1: computer from the mid nineteen eighties was thought to be

503
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 1: more powerful than anything you would ever need, because a

504
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 1: three eighty six computer compared to today's smartphones would see

505
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: clunky and slow in comparison. Since those days, we've seen

506
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 1: a lot more tech journalists agree to what is called

507
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 1: Worth's law, which is named after Nicholas Worth, who observed

508
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: that software speed was decreasing at a rate faster than

509
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: hardware speed was increasing. So, in other words, software is

510
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:10,160
Speaker 1: getting bloated and requires more resources to run faster than

511
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: we're seeing improvements in those resources. So year over year,

512
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 1: it feels like computers are going slower rather than faster.

513
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:21,959
Speaker 1: It's not that the computers are less powerful than they

514
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 1: were before. It's that the software requires more power than

515
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:31,120
Speaker 1: the previous generations software. And that's because we get bloat

516
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 1: software bloat over the course of many versions of the

517
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:39,720
Speaker 1: same program. So take take a word processor program. Well,

518
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 1: every successive version of that word processor program is likely

519
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 1: to be larger and more resource hungry than the version

520
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: before because a company has to start including more and

521
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:57,240
Speaker 1: more features to convince you to upgrade to buy the

522
00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: newest version. Otherwise, you would just buy one version and

523
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 1: you'd stick with it until, you know, until it just

524
00:33:03,720 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 1: literally could not measure up to what you needed it

525
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 1: to do. I mean, why would I need to buy

526
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 1: a new word processor program if I've got one that

527
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 1: works just fine. So to convince me to buy a

528
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: new one. Companies are going to add more and more features. Well.

529
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:22,960
Speaker 1: As software gets more complex, it becomes less efficient and

530
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 1: therefore it requires more power to run. And even to

531
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 1: this day, there's still a temptation to declare a machine

532
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 1: that has a screaming fast processor and cavernous storage capacity

533
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:38,800
Speaker 1: as being more than what you are ever going to need.

534
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 1: But the more seasoned computer users among us know that

535
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 1: eventually software is going to use up and maybe even

536
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: exceed that hardware's capabilities. So if you build it, the

537
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: software will fill it. It's kind of like if you

538
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:59,240
Speaker 1: build it, they will come. Now. The show in Vegas

539
00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty was just one of seven. The other

540
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 1: six shows happened in Tokyo, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Amsterdam, Nice,

541
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:11,440
Speaker 1: and Sydney. And the show in nineteen eighty six in

542
00:34:11,520 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 1: Vegas lasted five days. That was the longest conference up

543
00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:18,960
Speaker 1: to that point. So things were still on the rise.

544
00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 1: Everything was still growing every year. More money was being

545
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:24,239
Speaker 1: poured into the show, and each show meant that there

546
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,279
Speaker 1: was more square footage to lease to companies, and the

547
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: organizers were making some serious bank in those days. Meanwhile,

548
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: exhibitors were enjoying the benefits of connecting with customers and

549
00:34:33,680 --> 00:34:35,680
Speaker 1: getting an eye on what the competition was up to,

550
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 1: and a lot of ideas were launched at Comdex, not

551
00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 1: all of them successfully. There were plenty of examples of

552
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:46,040
Speaker 1: products that never went anywhere, and vaporware became a common word. Vaporware,

553
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:48,120
Speaker 1: by the way, is when you announce a product that

554
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:52,200
Speaker 1: never actually comes to market. It just remains vapor. It's

555
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: the kaiser SoSE of the technological world. Now, some Comdex

556
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 1: shows also became vapor aware. In nineteen eighty seven, and

557
00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:06,240
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty eight, the planned Comdex event in Tokyo

558
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:10,720
Speaker 1: was postponed, essentially canceled. It never really happened. The nineteen

559
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:14,520
Speaker 1: ninety one event for Paris was canceled outright now, things

560
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 1: were not dire, not by a long shot, but there

561
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:19,799
Speaker 1: were some growing pains as the organizers kept trying to

562
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 1: increase the show's reach. Sometimes they did it faster than

563
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:27,240
Speaker 1: they could actually support, and typically the reason these shows

564
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 1: would get canceled is because they weren't. The show organizers

565
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:34,759
Speaker 1: weren't able to sell out enough space on the show

566
00:35:34,840 --> 00:35:39,120
Speaker 1: floor to justify holding the trade show, so they couldn't

567
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 1: get enough vendors to agree to come to a show,

568
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: they'd postpone it or cancel it rather than lose money

569
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: on throwing a show with a small number of exhibitors.

570
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: By the late nineteen eighties, Comdex was looking to grow

571
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 1: some more, so it changed its attendance policy and started

572
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 1: to sell it admission to the general public. So for

573
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:04,640
Speaker 1: the first time, people unaffiliated with the industry or people

574
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:07,000
Speaker 1: who were not in the media could actually come to

575
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: the show, and no big surprise here, Attendance numbers exploded

576
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 1: as a result. Now, this was not necessarily welcomed by

577
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 1: all the other attendees. Some people were complaining that it

578
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 1: was becoming too difficult to navigate the floor because it

579
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:23,680
Speaker 1: was just there were just too many people. There are

580
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:26,359
Speaker 1: too many bodies in the way. And other people were

581
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,279
Speaker 1: worried that the show would turn into an enormous marketplace

582
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:33,480
Speaker 1: with the general public purchasing products directly from manufacturers rather

583
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:38,320
Speaker 1: than retailers. You know, like, why bother packing this device

584
00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 1: back up and shipping it back to your headquarters. I'll

585
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 1: just buy it off of you right here. Even though

586
00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 1: it's not scheduled to launch for another three months. You

587
00:36:47,280 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 1: also heard a lot of people say the show was

588
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: starting to lose its focus. It was it was starting

589
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:56,279
Speaker 1: to incorporate too many things outside of the core computer

590
00:36:56,440 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 1: and computer peripheral industry, and as a result, there were

591
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: a lot of people worried that the show was starting

592
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 1: to spiral out of control. Now, the early nineteen nineties

593
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 1: saw the rise of a new, very important player in

594
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 1: the computer space, and that is the Internet. While the

595
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: mainstream public was still getting a handle on what the

596
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:20,880
Speaker 1: Internet was back in the early nineteen nineties, condext began

597
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:24,399
Speaker 1: to feature more exhibitors promising the information super Highway would

598
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 1: change everything, and in many ways they were right, though

599
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 1: not all of their predictions would turn out to be accurate.

600
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 1: For one thing, in the early nineteen nineties, no one

601
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,280
Speaker 1: really had an idea of how the Internet could become

602
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:39,920
Speaker 1: a massive tool for commerce. It was more like a

603
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:44,280
Speaker 1: point of contact for people. So companies might have a website,

604
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 1: but it was meant to give information about a company

605
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 1: or to allow a potential customer or an existing customer

606
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:54,759
Speaker 1: to contact the company. But there wasn't a whole lot

607
00:37:54,800 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: beyond that in those early days, especially since the World

608
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: Wide Web didn't really debut in until ninety two ninety three,

609
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 1: So before that you're just talking about stuff like email

610
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:09,360
Speaker 1: and some other functions that were mainly used in the

611
00:38:09,400 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 1: academic world and were just barely getting a foothold in

612
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:18,600
Speaker 1: the corporate and then public world. Now over the next

613
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:21,400
Speaker 1: several years, more exhibitors would show off systems designed to

614
00:38:21,440 --> 00:38:24,800
Speaker 1: make accessing the Internet more intuitive and seamless, all the

615
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:28,760
Speaker 1: way from operating systems to web browsers. In early nineteen

616
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:32,640
Speaker 1: ninety five, news broke that a suitor to Comdex would

617
00:38:32,680 --> 00:38:36,279
Speaker 1: be taking over the show, and that suitor was a

618
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:40,919
Speaker 1: Japanese software company called soft Bank. The company made an

619
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:44,840
Speaker 1: eight hundred million dollars deal with the Interface Group to

620
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:49,400
Speaker 1: acquire the trade show. Now in nineteen ninety four, soft

621
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:54,440
Speaker 1: Bank had already purchased a publishing, exposition and conference division

622
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:57,799
Speaker 1: from the company's Zif Davis. They had tried to buy

623
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:00,960
Speaker 1: Ziff Davis outright, but Ziff Davis were used and then

624
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 1: instead settled on buying this division within Ziff Davis. So

625
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:08,360
Speaker 1: Ziff Davis spins out of division sells it to SoftBank.

626
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:13,799
Speaker 1: This division was an events planning division for publishing expositions.

627
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 1: Then soft Bank goes and buys Comdex from the Interface

628
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:22,719
Speaker 1: Group for eight hundred million dollars. Now, these two purchases

629
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: made SoftBank the largest name in the trade show game,

630
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:30,040
Speaker 1: and it also gave some prestige to the CEO of SoftBank,

631
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 1: who is a Masayoshi's son, who was sometimes called the

632
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: Bill Gates of Japan, and his story is really interesting too.

633
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: Sun had overcome poverty and also social stigma to become

634
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 1: a successful businessman in Japan. He was the son of

635
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:48,120
Speaker 1: two Korean immigrants, and in Japan at the time, Koreans

636
00:39:48,120 --> 00:39:50,839
Speaker 1: were sometimes the victims of racial prejudice, so his story

637
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting. Maybe I'll do an episode about him sometime.

638
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:59,560
Speaker 1: At this point, Comdex was enormous. The nineteen ninety four

639
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 1: show in Vegas had almost two hundred thousand people in attendance.

640
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,280
Speaker 1: That's a huge jump from that four thousand from nineteen

641
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:11,359
Speaker 1: seventy nine. Now, keep in mind they also opened up

642
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:13,560
Speaker 1: the doors to the general public, so part of that

643
00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: growth was just from people curious to learn more about

644
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: the latest computers, but they had no connection to the

645
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:22,960
Speaker 1: industry itself. Now, along with the growth in attendance was

646
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:27,200
Speaker 1: a growth of complaints among exhibitors. Some companies were protesting

647
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: what they considered to be unfair fees and rental rates.

648
00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:35,240
Speaker 1: But even though they felt that perhaps things were becoming

649
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: a little unfair, most companies also felt that the show

650
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: was too important to skip. They couldn't skip out on it,

651
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 1: or else they would be left behind by their competitors.

652
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: So they would show up and they would pay. There

653
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:51,759
Speaker 1: had been talks of launching a competitor show, like a

654
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:54,920
Speaker 1: bunch of groups saying, you know what, forget this, We're

655
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 1: gonna go out and make our own trade show, but

656
00:40:57,400 --> 00:41:02,359
Speaker 1: they hadn't really gone far beyond just some big talk. Now,

657
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 1: in the next section, I'm going to really concentrate on

658
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:09,399
Speaker 1: how the show got to its largest point and then

659
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:12,800
Speaker 1: what happened to make it disappear over the next few years.

660
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 1: But before I get into that, let's take another quick

661
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:29,000
Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. All Right, So it's nineteen

662
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:33,840
Speaker 1: ninety seven. Comdex hits its peak, It gets the largest

663
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 1: it will ever get. In nineteen ninety seven, the number

664
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:42,240
Speaker 1: of exhibitors was more than twenty four hundred and eighty

665
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: and they were taking up one point thirty five million

666
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 1: square feet of space on the show floor in the

667
00:41:48,120 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 1: primary Vegas show of the year, the number of attendees

668
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 1: was about two hundred and forty thousand. I mean a

669
00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:59,240
Speaker 1: huge number of people, like a quarter of a million

670
00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: people almost at nineteen ninety seven Comdex Las Vegas. This

671
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 1: was a monster of a show, but it also marked

672
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 1: the beginning of the decline of Condex. Exhibitors were complaining

673
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 1: even more about predatory practices of Comdex staffers, pressuring companies

674
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 1: to invest in larger booths year over year. They were saying, well,

675
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 1: we want to be part of the show, but every

676
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: year we're making the arrangements. Everyone's pressuring us to make

677
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 1: our booth bigger than the year before, which means we

678
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 1: have to spend more money in order to be part

679
00:42:32,800 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 1: of this show. And it's getting ridiculous. It got so

680
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,400
Speaker 1: ridiculous for some companies that began to drop out, including

681
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:45,440
Speaker 1: big names. IBM withdrew from Comdex because of these practices,

682
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:49,280
Speaker 1: and according to a CNN Money report from two thousand

683
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 1: and three, Condex became a quote magnet for dumb money

684
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:57,359
Speaker 1: end quote. Now what they meant by that is that

685
00:42:57,960 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 1: if you participated in Comdex year over year, that was

686
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 1: just a recipe of diminishing returns. You were going to

687
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 1: see fewer and fewer benefits of being part of the show,

688
00:43:08,640 --> 00:43:12,080
Speaker 1: and ultimately it would become a drain on resources, meaning

689
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:15,720
Speaker 1: you're losing more money attending the show than you're making

690
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 1: out of business because of the show. So more exhibitors

691
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 1: were starting to drop out following nineteen ninety seven. They

692
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 1: were saying, well, I'm spending money, but I don't see

693
00:43:28,280 --> 00:43:31,919
Speaker 1: the return on investment. This is like putting a big

694
00:43:31,960 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 1: time commercial out on a channel that no one is watching.

695
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:39,280
Speaker 1: What's the point now? Behind the scenes, in a series

696
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 1: of moves so complicated, I don't even understand them, SoftBank

697
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 1: reorganized its divisions and departments. So it took the division

698
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 1: that owned Condex and that publishing conference I talked about before.

699
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:57,239
Speaker 1: It was essentially known as ZD Events at the time,

700
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:02,080
Speaker 1: and transformed this into a new and a publicly traded

701
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:07,359
Speaker 1: entity called Key three Media. That's key the numeral three

702
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:10,920
Speaker 1: and media all is one word. And this was a

703
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 1: holding company. It was just existed to hold these assets.

704
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 1: That's all it did. Now SoftBank held about half of

705
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,879
Speaker 1: the ownership of Key three Media, but eventually it would

706
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:27,800
Speaker 1: spin it off completely. Now that happened after SoftBank tried

707
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:31,600
Speaker 1: to auction off the events division. So why was it

708
00:44:31,640 --> 00:44:34,680
Speaker 1: trying to sell something the company had only purchased a

709
00:44:34,719 --> 00:44:39,240
Speaker 1: couple of years before. Perhaps organizing and running the events

710
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 1: was too far outside the wheelhouse of the software corporation.

711
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:46,560
Speaker 1: The acquisition of Condex and Ziff Davis's publishing conference didn't

712
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:49,839
Speaker 1: necessarily include the people with the knowledge and experience of

713
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:54,239
Speaker 1: organizing those events. At any rate, the auction did not

714
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:58,359
Speaker 1: result in any satisfactory offers. Apparently, the largest offer on

715
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:01,359
Speaker 1: the table was for six hundred forty million dollars, which

716
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:04,200
Speaker 1: is way less than the eight hundred million soft Bank

717
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:07,359
Speaker 1: paid for Comdex alone, never mind the Ziff Davis deal.

718
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 1: So Key three Media would eventually become an independent spinoff

719
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:15,320
Speaker 1: and the sole owner of Comdex. Now. The head of

720
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:19,360
Speaker 1: Key three Media was a guy named Fred Rosen, and

721
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:23,279
Speaker 1: Rosen had made a fortune growing and then selling Ticketmaster

722
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:30,360
Speaker 1: Boom Ticketmaster. That's my own personal bias coming through. I

723
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:33,320
Speaker 1: have an issue with Ticketmaster. I have many issues with Ticketmaster.

724
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 1: I should do an episode about them, but it will

725
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 1: be the most unbiased, unforgiving episode of tech stuff. Ever,

726
00:45:40,120 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 1: so maybe I should just keep a trap shut anyway.

727
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:45,319
Speaker 1: Rosen reportedly ran Key three as if it were a

728
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: massive corporation rather than an events production company. He moved

729
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:52,319
Speaker 1: the headquarters to an expensive part of Los Angeles, not

730
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:55,440
Speaker 1: too far from his own mansion, and he would end

731
00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 1: up taking company trips on a private jet across the world.

732
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 1: His salary was one and a half million dollars in

733
00:46:01,800 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 1: two thousand and one. That's a big salary for a CEO,

734
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:08,319
Speaker 1: especially considering most CEOs get the majority of their compensation

735
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 1: and benefits as opposed to a direct salary. Million and

736
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:14,120
Speaker 1: a half in two thousand and one is no chump change.

737
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 1: Former employees said that his managerial style was incredibly confrontational

738
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 1: and off putting, so much so that he was driving

739
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:24,719
Speaker 1: away staffers who had been working in the trade show

740
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:28,399
Speaker 1: industry for decades, which meant that, as a result, Key

741
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: three was depleting its company's talent pool. You had fewer

742
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 1: and fewer people around who knew how to handle trade shows,

743
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:44,080
Speaker 1: so it was a mess, to put it lightly. Now,

744
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 1: this takes us to nineteen ninety eight, and this was

745
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:49,760
Speaker 1: the year that featured that infamous blue screen of death.

746
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 1: During a demonstration of an early build of Windows ninety eight.

747
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:57,480
Speaker 1: You heard our listener Alex refer to this earlier. So

748
00:46:57,520 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 1: what happened? Well, Bill Gates and Chris Capocella were on

749
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:06,520
Speaker 1: stage during the keynote event to talk about Windows ninety eight,

750
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 1: which had not yet launched. It was still in development,

751
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: it had actually been delayed, and Capaseella was trying to

752
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:17,560
Speaker 1: show how Windows ninety eight could download drivers. Drivers are

753
00:47:17,560 --> 00:47:20,759
Speaker 1: these components that are needed for software and hardware to

754
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:24,800
Speaker 1: work with the operating system, and he was explaining how

755
00:47:24,840 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 1: seamless this operation was when the computer crashed and went

756
00:47:27,960 --> 00:47:31,239
Speaker 1: to the blue screen of death, at which point Bill

757
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:35,440
Speaker 1: Gates started chuckling and Caposeella was like doing a little

758
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 1: bit of a shuffle. He was very quickly trying to

759
00:47:37,640 --> 00:47:40,759
Speaker 1: switch away from the monitor screen and it could have

760
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:44,560
Speaker 1: been an embarrassing disaster, but I think they actually handled

761
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:48,720
Speaker 1: the problem really well with humor. So the audience started laughing,

762
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:51,919
Speaker 1: and Capaseella, who was responding to the audience's laughter at

763
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:55,759
Speaker 1: the blue screen of death, said moving right along in

764
00:47:55,800 --> 00:48:00,200
Speaker 1: a very self deprecating way, like he wasn't angry. He

765
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:05,400
Speaker 1: seemed a little chagrined. But not completely thrown off. And

766
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:08,400
Speaker 1: then Bill Gates said this must be why we're not

767
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:14,520
Speaker 1: shipping Windows ninety eight yet, to which Capisella said, absolutely, absolutely,

768
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 1: So it was a moment that reminded everyone that sometimes

769
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:20,320
Speaker 1: stuff just goes wrong. And I actually like watching this clip.

770
00:48:20,400 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 1: I was afraid to watch it. I never watched it

771
00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 1: at the time, And I tend to feel a lot

772
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:28,360
Speaker 1: of empathy for people who are giving a public presentation

773
00:48:28,960 --> 00:48:31,759
Speaker 1: because there are enormous pressures on you when you are

774
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:34,040
Speaker 1: giving a live speech in front of a big crowd

775
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,440
Speaker 1: of people. Keep in mind, we're talking condex when the

776
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 1: attendance is like two hundred thousand plus people. You could

777
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 1: have thousands of people in that audience all focusing on

778
00:48:45,680 --> 00:48:49,080
Speaker 1: you and something goes wrong. I feel nothing but empathy

779
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 1: because I've been in those kind of situations at a

780
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:54,759
Speaker 1: much smaller scale and it feels like torture. But I

781
00:48:54,880 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 1: liked watching this clip because it didn't feel awful. It

782
00:48:58,600 --> 00:49:01,880
Speaker 1: felt like they handled this pretty well as it feels

783
00:49:01,880 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 1: actually pretty natural. So for one thing, it's not a

784
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 1: presentation that fools you into thinking a product as completely flawless.

785
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 1: If you've ever been to any product demonstration where it's

786
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 1: clear everything has been pre recorded and rehearsed so that

787
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:22,640
Speaker 1: nothing goes wrong. It doesn't feel genuine, and you might

788
00:49:22,680 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 1: even feel when you get your hands on the real

789
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 1: thing that you were given a misrepresentation of what it

790
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:31,520
Speaker 1: was all about. Seeing something kind of fail and people

791
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,719
Speaker 1: acknowledge it and move on was a little refreshing. So

792
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:37,479
Speaker 1: it's just a kind of a funny moment, and something

793
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:42,040
Speaker 1: that Microsoft presentations frequently had, that is funny moments, not failures.

794
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:44,319
Speaker 1: And some of those funny moments were intentional, and some

795
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:50,400
Speaker 1: of them were not intentional. Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers. Nineteen

796
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 1: ninety eight was also the first year to see a

797
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:57,280
Speaker 1: major decline in attendance. So I said two hundred thousand,

798
00:49:57,320 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 1: but actually it was fewer than that. At that point,

799
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:01,520
Speaker 1: this was the big beginning of the end for Comdex,

800
00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:03,440
Speaker 1: though at the time no one could see that. It

801
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 1: did just appear to be a blip in the growth,

802
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:08,800
Speaker 1: and the following year saw another dip, and the number

803
00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 1: of exhibitors in two thousand, or in nineteen ninety nine

804
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:15,279
Speaker 1: rather was a one nine hundred and eleven, so more

805
00:50:15,320 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 1: than twenty four hundred in ninety seven. In ninety nine one,

806
00:50:19,719 --> 00:50:22,440
Speaker 1: nine hundred eleven, we start seeing fewer exhibitors showing up.

807
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 1: More people are irritated with the way Comdex is running things,

808
00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:30,400
Speaker 1: or rather the way Key three Media is running things,

809
00:50:30,800 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 1: and are not coming back. Now. There was a little

810
00:50:33,120 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 1: bit of a rally in two thousand, a few more

811
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:38,480
Speaker 1: exhibitors signed up, mostly new companies, but that was not

812
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:43,880
Speaker 1: to last. Also in nineteen ninety nine, Comdex organizers shook

813
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:48,040
Speaker 1: things up by changing the requirements for mass media, and

814
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:50,960
Speaker 1: a lot of major outlets that had been covering Condex

815
00:50:51,000 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 1: since the beginning found themselves turned away, and that really

816
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:58,720
Speaker 1: shook things up. I mean, you had big, big names

817
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: in mass media total that they were not going to

818
00:51:01,080 --> 00:51:04,560
Speaker 1: be allowed to attend Comdex, and that did not help

819
00:51:04,640 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 1: the organization at all. I mean, making sure that you

820
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:13,320
Speaker 1: alienate media is a good way to have some pretty

821
00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 1: negative coverage about your organization. And in two thousand and

822
00:51:18,200 --> 00:51:21,880
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, there was another problem. This was

823
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 1: outside of Comdex. This was a huge problem that had

824
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:29,760
Speaker 1: global implications, and I'm talking about the dot com bubble burst.

825
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:33,520
Speaker 1: So the dot com bubble, that's when you had all

826
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:38,719
Speaker 1: these web based companies popping up getting huge amounts of

827
00:51:38,920 --> 00:51:42,600
Speaker 1: investment capital, whether it was private investment or the company

828
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 1: had gone public very early, the value of the company

829
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:49,239
Speaker 1: was inflated beyond what it could actually do, and then

830
00:51:49,360 --> 00:51:53,799
Speaker 1: ultimately many of these companies failed to show any real

831
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:58,680
Speaker 1: value and the bubble, this investment bubble burst. Dozens of

832
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:02,319
Speaker 1: companies went under, and companies in the computer industry in

833
00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 1: general suffered, even if they weren't directly tied to dot com,

834
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:08,719
Speaker 1: because they were in the computer industry, they were hit

835
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:11,440
Speaker 1: pretty hard because there was a ripple effect that came

836
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:14,200
Speaker 1: outward from the dot com companies to all the other

837
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:17,440
Speaker 1: computer companies that were, you know, kind of in that

838
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:21,319
Speaker 1: same pool, even though they weren't necessarily themselves a dot

839
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 1: com company. Well, that meant that that ripple effect continued

840
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:31,960
Speaker 1: to hit comdex. And another event also ended up really

841
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:35,040
Speaker 1: setting comdex back, and that was the terrorist attack on

842
00:52:35,080 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 1: September eleventh, two thousand and one in the United States

843
00:52:38,280 --> 00:52:42,080
Speaker 1: that affected trade shows. Because it ended up affecting international travel.

844
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:46,440
Speaker 1: It scaled back international travel to a huge degree in

845
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:49,600
Speaker 1: the wake of those attacks, completely understandably. I mean, there's

846
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:54,359
Speaker 1: there's there's nothing else to say about that, but it

847
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 1: did affect the trade shows at a time when Comdex

848
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:03,239
Speaker 1: was already having problems. So the Las Vegas Condex show

849
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:05,280
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one had one hundred and twenty

850
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:08,720
Speaker 1: five thousand attendees. That's still a large number of people,

851
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:11,280
Speaker 1: you know, one hundred and twenty five thousand, but still

852
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:15,439
Speaker 1: very short of that two hundred forty thousand the show

853
00:53:15,480 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: had at its peak. In two thousand and two, Key

854
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,840
Speaker 1: three Media was in dire straits and not the band.

855
00:53:23,600 --> 00:53:26,280
Speaker 1: With three days to go before the Las Vegas Trade

856
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:30,400
Speaker 1: Show opened, the company announced in its quarterly earning statement

857
00:53:30,520 --> 00:53:34,160
Speaker 1: that it might have to enter Chapter eleven bankruptcy protection

858
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:37,759
Speaker 1: if it could not raise more capital, or sell the

859
00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 1: company off or find a merger partner. Key three Media's

860
00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:44,640
Speaker 1: revenue had plummeted in two thousand and two, so in

861
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:47,239
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, the third quarter revenues were at

862
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:49,919
Speaker 1: fifty one and a half million. In two thousand and two,

863
00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:53,640
Speaker 1: third quarter revenues were down to thirty eight point four million.

864
00:53:53,680 --> 00:53:56,279
Speaker 1: That's a big drop over the course of the full year.

865
00:53:56,600 --> 00:54:00,440
Speaker 1: The company had lost nearly three hundred million dollars in

866
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:02,759
Speaker 1: two thousand and one, it was in the black. It

867
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:06,960
Speaker 1: had made a profit of fourteen point one million. It's

868
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:10,960
Speaker 1: a small profit relatively speaking, but the loss of three

869
00:54:11,080 --> 00:54:14,839
Speaker 1: hundred million that's a huge, huge downturn. Things were looking

870
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:19,359
Speaker 1: pretty awful. On top of that, the company had an

871
00:54:19,440 --> 00:54:22,400
Speaker 1: upcoming interest payment on a debt it owed, and no

872
00:54:22,440 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: one was really sure if they the company would actually

873
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:27,840
Speaker 1: be able to sign the check to pay off that

874
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:30,680
Speaker 1: interest payment, which is why they were looking at the

875
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:34,239
Speaker 1: possibility of entering Chapter eleven bankruptcy protection. Shares of Key

876
00:54:34,239 --> 00:54:36,799
Speaker 1: three Media were down to a measly one point four

877
00:54:36,920 --> 00:54:41,200
Speaker 1: cents per share. It's pretty ugly, folks now. In February

878
00:54:41,239 --> 00:54:44,080
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, the Key three Media filed for

879
00:54:44,160 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 1: Chapter eleven protection. When it finally emerged from Chapter eleven,

880
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:52,239
Speaker 1: so they were able to get their act together and

881
00:54:52,360 --> 00:54:57,120
Speaker 1: come out of Chapter eleven bankruptcy protection. They also rebranded themselves.

882
00:54:57,320 --> 00:54:59,680
Speaker 1: They were no longer Key three Media. Now they were

883
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:04,080
Speaker 1: called Media Live, and there was some hope that this

884
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:06,960
Speaker 1: new brand would be able to recapture the glory days

885
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:10,040
Speaker 1: of comdexes in the past, but it was not meant

886
00:55:10,120 --> 00:55:12,760
Speaker 1: to be. The two thousand and three show drew only

887
00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:16,960
Speaker 1: fifty thousand attendees. Fifty thousand still a lot of people,

888
00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:20,680
Speaker 1: but not compared to two hundred forty thousand. In two

889
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:24,160
Speaker 1: thousand and four, In a move that shocked very few people,

890
00:55:24,400 --> 00:55:28,480
Speaker 1: Condex Las Vegas was canceled. The struggles of Media Alive

891
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:31,880
Speaker 1: were well known. They were pretty public. People knew that

892
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:35,520
Speaker 1: the company was in trouble. Attendance had dropped significantly over

893
00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:38,800
Speaker 1: the past few years, so many large companies had pulled

894
00:55:38,800 --> 00:55:43,359
Speaker 1: out of the show, expressing their exasperation of dealing with

895
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:46,759
Speaker 1: the policies and high pressure sales tactics of the organizers.

896
00:55:47,800 --> 00:55:51,680
Speaker 1: There was still some hope along Media Live lines that

897
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:53,799
Speaker 1: two thousand and five would be different, that they would

898
00:55:53,800 --> 00:55:55,680
Speaker 1: be able to come back in two thousand and five

899
00:55:55,719 --> 00:55:57,600
Speaker 1: and two thousand and four would just be a year off.

900
00:55:58,640 --> 00:56:01,480
Speaker 1: But in two thousand and five, all of the company's

901
00:56:01,560 --> 00:56:06,920
Speaker 1: planned Comdex events were canceled except for one so it

902
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:08,840
Speaker 1: was supposed to happen in Las Vegas, but it didn't.

903
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:11,640
Speaker 1: The only Comdex event to happen in that year was

904
00:56:11,719 --> 00:56:15,240
Speaker 1: in Greece in Athens, but all the other ones were canceled.

905
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:20,239
Speaker 1: Analysts said that the implosion of Comdex came about due

906
00:56:20,280 --> 00:56:25,800
Speaker 1: to a mix of mismanagement, depletion of talent, bad marketing choices,

907
00:56:26,480 --> 00:56:29,840
Speaker 1: and also just that exhibitors weren't willing to play ball anymore.

908
00:56:30,160 --> 00:56:33,239
Speaker 1: So the problem was that they couldn't get enough companies

909
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 1: to agree to be part of the show. To have

910
00:56:35,760 --> 00:56:38,840
Speaker 1: a show, It's kind of like throwing a huge party

911
00:56:38,880 --> 00:56:42,640
Speaker 1: advertised as a star studded event, but the only celebrities

912
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:44,319
Speaker 1: who show up are a couple of folks from one

913
00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:47,800
Speaker 1: of the later seasons of MTVS. The Real World doesn't

914
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:52,959
Speaker 1: really work. You can't really fuel a celebrity party that way.

915
00:56:53,360 --> 00:56:55,560
Speaker 1: No offense to anyone who's ever been on MTV's The

916
00:56:55,600 --> 00:56:59,880
Speaker 1: Real World. It didn't help that shows like the con

917
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:03,800
Speaker 1: Suomer Electronics Show, now known just as CEES, had become

918
00:57:03,880 --> 00:57:06,160
Speaker 1: more popular. Some of the big names that had been

919
00:57:06,200 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 1: regulars at Comdex had withdrawn and now were attending cees instead.

920
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:16,800
Speaker 1: Comdex would see a bit of a revival, a strange

921
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 1: revival in twenty ten. So it had gone dead between

922
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:24,240
Speaker 1: two thousand and four and twenty ten, but in twenty

923
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:29,760
Speaker 1: ten we saw Comdex Virtual, so instead of a physical

924
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:32,680
Speaker 1: trade show that you would go and attend, featuring thousands

925
00:57:32,720 --> 00:57:36,160
Speaker 1: of people walking around the convention center. Condex Virtual was

926
00:57:36,160 --> 00:57:38,800
Speaker 1: a website you would go to and it simulated a

927
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:41,800
Speaker 1: trade show. You could watch keynote speeches, and you could

928
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:45,480
Speaker 1: virtually visit vendor booths. And it showed up again in

929
00:57:45,520 --> 00:57:48,680
Speaker 1: twenty eleven and one more time in twenty twelve, and

930
00:57:48,720 --> 00:57:51,840
Speaker 1: then it faded away. If you were to go to

931
00:57:51,880 --> 00:57:55,240
Speaker 1: the Condex Virtual website today, you would get an under

932
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:58,280
Speaker 1: construction page, which seems charmingly out of date if you

933
00:57:58,320 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 1: ask me. And that's the story of Condex from its

934
00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:07,400
Speaker 1: birth to its death. Trade shows still exist. Some of

935
00:58:07,440 --> 00:58:10,520
Speaker 1: them are as large or larger than Condex was at

936
00:58:10,520 --> 00:58:13,240
Speaker 1: its height. Others are a bit more modest. And we're

937
00:58:13,280 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 1: seeing some companies like Apple and Google concentrate on holding

938
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:20,640
Speaker 1: their own events rather than abiding by an annual trade

939
00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:23,360
Speaker 1: show schedule. So instead of saying we're going to hold

940
00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:28,560
Speaker 1: off on announcing something until someone else's schedule lines up,

941
00:58:28,960 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 1: they say, no, we'll hold our own events, and we don't.

942
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:34,960
Speaker 1: That way, we don't get lost in the shuffle. And

943
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:38,160
Speaker 1: that was the story of Condex, a show that originally

944
00:58:38,160 --> 00:58:42,080
Speaker 1: published on March twenty second, twenty seventeen. It's funny because

945
00:58:42,160 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 1: other trade shows can certainly join the ranks of Condex

946
00:58:45,960 --> 00:58:48,840
Speaker 1: of shows that used to be important in tech and

947
00:58:48,880 --> 00:58:53,240
Speaker 1: now no longer exist. Arguably E three could be on

948
00:58:53,320 --> 00:58:57,240
Speaker 1: that list because they've had to cancel it a couple

949
00:58:57,320 --> 00:59:02,880
Speaker 1: of times. But as I'm recording these intros and outros, uh,

950
00:59:03,600 --> 00:59:07,120
Speaker 1: the the death knell for E three has not yet rung,

951
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:12,640
Speaker 1: so maybe it's just mostly dead. It'll come back after,

952
00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:15,880
Speaker 1: you know, Miracle Max gets a gets a whack at it.

953
00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:18,880
Speaker 1: We'll have to wait and see. But Comdex, no, it's

954
00:59:18,920 --> 00:59:21,400
Speaker 1: really most sincerely dead. It's like the wicked Witch of

955
00:59:21,440 --> 00:59:24,480
Speaker 1: the East. I hope all of you are well, and

956
00:59:24,520 --> 00:59:33,880
Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff

957
00:59:33,960 --> 00:59:37,880
Speaker 1: is an iHeart Radio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

958
00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:41,960
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

959
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:43,040
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.