C3 Expo
Fooled Me Thrice

By Jim Scheef

The Corporate, Channel Computing Expo (C3), is an attempt to revive the old PC Expo of the 80’s and 90’s. The last big PC Expo was in 2001, and you know the rest. This is the third year for C3, and likely the last. Two years ago, when the show was starting under the new name, the show management offered DACS a booth, which we accepted. We only staffed the booth for one day, as the show was so poor we could not stand the thought of going there more than once. Last year Marc Cohen, DACS Director Emeritus, and I went down against our better judgment. While the show had grown from the first year, it still lacked that key exhibitor - Microsoft. Hewlett Packard, IBM, and a few others provided some “big vendor” interest to the show, but it was so lame that I swore I would not return until Microsoft anchored the show.

Jacob Javits CenterOver the last few weeks as the dates for this year’s show approached, Marc Cohen and I debated on whether we would go down to see if things had improved. The vendor list looked about the same as last year and there was something about an RFID show that sounded interesting; so on Wednesday afternoon I called Marc and asked if he still wanted to go on Thursday, the last day of the show. We planned to ride the 8am train from Danbury.

After enjoyable train and bus rides, we arrived at an empty Javits Center. There was no one outside, on one in the lower lobby area. We wondered if the show had been canceled! Inside there were people giving out badges, and after a 20-second process to get ours, we headed for the show floor. All of the exhibitors were housed in the exhibit hall at the far north of the center. Yes, the show was in just one room, and part of the room was curtained-off for the keynote speakers! Not one hardware manufacturer had a booth; apparently HP and IBM had backed out. Marc said there were more booths than attendees and this was only a slight exaggeration! As we walked the isles, the people in the booths were visibly glad to see us—not the reception one would get on the last day of a busy PC Expo!

On a personal note, I did have a beneficial conversation with the people in the Xandros booth. Xandros is a commercial Linux distribution that I first reviewed in August, 2004. I really liked it then because everything worked on the first install! They gave me a NFR (not for resale) copy of the Xandros Server as part of the “Xandros Partner Program”. The server product is aimed at the same market as Microsoft Small Business Server (my favorite Microsoft product). I plan to install it on one of my servers and write a review and day now.

 


 
 
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