Preview Comdex--or Virtually Attend It
More than 200,000 people and 2,200 companies are gathering in Las Vegas this week for Comdex, the biggest computer-related conference and trade show of the year. Since its founding 20 years ago, Comdex has morphed into an extravaganza that fills three giant hotels plus the Las Vegas Convention Center and spans five days.
Anyone planning to attend an event of this size would do well to navigate beforehand the Comdex-related sites on the World Wide Web, which abound with tips for the intrepid Comdex pilgrim. There are also plenty of sites to keep those who won't be visiting in person abreast of the action.
The place to begin is at the official Comdex Web site, hosted by Comdex organizer Ziff-Davis at http://www.zdevents.com/comdex. To get a sense of the conference's vast scope, just peruse the schedule. There will be sessions on all the hot topics, including Linux, Windows NT, Java, Jini, VPNs (virtual private networks), XML (extensible markup language) and more. A couple of the more intriguing titles are "PC 2020--Beyond Faster and Cheaper" and "Internext--How Will the Internet Evolve?"
Then there's the trade show, at which an estimated 10,000 new products will be introduced this week. The Comdex Web site has an interactive directory of all 2,200 exhibitors, which can be searched alphabetically or by product category. Each listing includes the company's booth number on the trade show floor, and the sites offer company descriptions and contact information that can be sorted by keyword and topic.
Plenty of news will be made at Comdex, and it will be chronicled on the Web in the "Daily & Preview" section of the site (http://daily.zdevents.com). New products, keynote speeches, expert commentary, trends and other items of interest will be noted there. This site is also the place to see live audio and video Web-casts of the keynote speakers, who include Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Linux creator Linus Torvalds.
For those who intend to go, Comdex veterans suggest planning ahead to get the most out of the event. Conference organizers have posted a checklist at http://www.zdevents.com/comdex/fall99/checklist.html, but their suggestions ("Register early," "Reserve a hotel room," "Bring your laptop") aren't particularly insightful.
