Comdex, for those non-techie types lucky enough to have never attended, is the annual computer convention, the largest of its kind. It is a vast, sprawling mess that swallows the Las Vegas convention center along with several surrounding hotels (Microsoft, for example, took over twenty floors of the Marriot down the road). Attendance was down this year — from 200,000 to around 125,000. Perhaps it was fear of flying. Perhaps it was the rumor that terrorists were planning to release smallpox at the convention. Perhaps it was the metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs that patrolled every entrance and made getting inside just as much of a crowded nightmare as actually being inside. Or perhaps it was the growing realization that the whole event is as ridiculous an excuse for a paid vacation as a corporate retreat in Maui.
It would be fine if that were all it was. I have no problem hanging out with geeks getting in touch with their inner desires, like the Microsofties who got body shots from silicone-enhanced exotic dancers at The Beach on Monday night. My problem is that Comdex has spread itself too wide and become too shallow to be of any real use. The products on display have usually either been seen a hundred times before or are showy prototypes — "vaporware" — that will never reach the market and are intended to drum up hype for their company.
Sure, there are choice tidbits here and there. Bill Gates' "state of the union" keynote speech on Sunday unveiled some interesting new Tablet PCs and the software that will make them work (Tablet PCs, vaporware at every previous Comdex, are finally starting to come into their own). But to get to the scraps of good stuff, even in Gates' speech, you had to wade through a lot of promotional crap. It's just like watching Prime Time TV.
Wandering dazed and footsore through those hot dry halls is to be accosted by advertising, mugged by marketing and interred by informercials. "Wave your hands in the air!" yelled one painfully hip stall barker in beret and shades. "Who gives you world-class storage solutions?" (Just to irk the company responsible, I won't provide the answer). Another stall, decked out in palm trees, featured an Indiana Jones-style adventurer with fake chest muscles hacking through fake undergrowth while screaming into a microphone: "It's a jungle in today's tech world!" Even the keynotes have lost all philosophical pretensions and are little more than cheerleading rallies — or in the case of Oracle's Larry Ellison, the world's second-richest man, a chance to vent his relentless, Nixon-like obsession with the Microsoft enemy. "Did you hear? They're bundling lunch with Windows now," Ellison joshed the crowd. Yes, we had heard that one before.
Why on Earth the infotech industry has to put up with this when they themselves have produced the means to eliminate such gatherings altogether is one of the greatest ironies of our times. You can watch the keynotes, order products and subject yourself to a barrage of ads online. "The whole point is to get the f___ out of the office," one Comdex veteran told me. That may be true, but even the week's most decadent moments seemed sadly sordid.
Take the free massage I got Tuesday afternoon in Microsoft's Marriott Mecca (I was waiting for interviews, I swear). It was all going so well until the masseuse finished up with the words "and that's your pat on the back from Microsoft." It could not have been a creepier moment if I'd turned round to discover it was Bill Gates with the magic fingers.
Roll on, westbound plane. Technology, terror, advertising and prepackaged sleaze make for a pretty tasteless brew.