Macworld Expo in NY Becomes Seybold-Like

It seemed only a matter of time, but the Macworld Expo in New York has morphed into CREATE, according to internetnews.com. Apple will still participate, but the change has probably saved them millions of dollars without completely diminishing the value of the show.At Macworld Expos, Apple sends hordes of employees to deal with briefings, crowd control, demos of new hardware, etc. It's easy to see that they spend several million to handle their end of the show. (The San Francisco show involves mostly local Apple employees who only need to commute to San Francisco for the day--no plane fare, no hotel room nights.) More recently, Apple decided they wanted to uncouple product announcements from events, to keep the market for products from constantly collapsing prior to each show. I wouldn't be surprised if they have a financial analysis that shows that beyond the hard costs associated with Macworld/NY they also had millions in soft costs for deferred or halted sales, and obsolete equipment they had to clear out of the channel. I went to the New York show for the first time last year, and I didn't plan to return. Not only is it a lousy time to be in the Big Apple -- it was the hottest week of the summer last year -- and Javits a pain in the apple to get to, but there just wasn't the critical mass of people and products and news to make it a real event.