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Fewer sightseers make Gitex exhibitors happy
Another Gitex technology week has come and gone.
- By Scott Shuey, Chief Business Reporter
- Published: 00:08 October 25, 2008
Another Gitex technology week has come and gone.
All week I was asked the same question: how was the show?
It depends on who you ask. That may seem like a cowardly answer, but there were a lot of different responses. Some people walked out the door on Thursday - the final day of the business to business exhibition - pleasantly surprised. Others were complaining bitterly. Some companies didn't even show up at all.
So who was saying what? In general, many of the companies I spoke to were happy, despite a lot of early complaints about foot traffic. At times, there was none. I walked through some of the halls on Wednesday morning and wouldn't have been surprised to see tumbleweeds drifting in front of me, but the complaints seemed to die down when companies found the people who did show up were there to do business.
What you didn't see this year was a bunch of sightseers. I didn't get boxed in by crowds of people pushing prams and looking to see the next cool "thing".
There were some companies that weren't happy, to be sure. Some said they saw very few customers, good or bad, but it general those companies seemed to be few and far between.
Don't get the idea that the show was slow all the time, either. The telecom and consumer electronic halls were usually filled with people. Even Oracle's stand seemed to be hopping, something you don't expect to see at a booth dedicated to enterprise software.
Consumers seemed happy, too. There were very few of them, because the Dubai World Trade Centre made an example out of anyone caught selling items from their stalls. Helal Al Marri, the head of the DWTC, brought out some heavy language when asked about this. The dreaded phrase "breach of contract" was used.
But at the consumer portions of the show, people were lining up for free give-aways, checking out home entertainment centres, and checking out whatever caught their interest. The only problem was they had to travel across town to the Gitex Shopper if they saw anything they liked, which is the reason a lot a consumer electronic companies set up shop there instead.
So who was complaining? Journalists mainly, and they had some legitimate reasons, as well as lousy ones. There were few big announcements, and even fewer product launches. Blame the companies and/or the internet for that, but that isn't going to change anything. The days of companies using the trade shows to launch products or announce deals are probably over, especially when those deals and launches are increasingly international. But the companies did bring out a number of the heavy hitters to talk to the press this year. The chairman of Sun Microsystems made an appearance, as well as the president of Oracle. You couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a vice president.
What were the lousy reasons? Freebies. This year at Gitex, journalists weren't getting free phones and, frankly, other junk shoved in their hands every time they showed up for an interview. Companies are increasingly hoping journalists will show up for the news, and that apparently didn't sit well with some.
But that's just the way it goes. Gitex seems to be maturing, and just like in life, the showgirls, loud music and toys (even if they are very cool consumer electronics) start taking a back seat to the business at hand, which in this case is IT.
Consumers seemed happy, too. There were very few of them, because the Dubai World Trade Centre made an example out of anyone caught selling items from their stalls.
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