ShadowRAM: November 25, 2002
- DELL'S OEM WOES PUSH BACK TABLET PC PLANS
- COMDEX CEO WONDERS ALOUD ABOUT McNEALY'S ABILITIES
- AN OLD FAMILIAR FACE GRACES HP'S CHILIFEST BROCHURE
- At the risk of sounding like the J. Peterman catalog:
- We slashed our way through the dense jungle of Zimbabwe and made it to a little, hardscrabble village on the bank of a river where the people wore handmade clothing and smiles from ear to ear.
- Resting against a tree, we pulled out our canteens for a refreshing burst of agua when it caught our eyes. Wrapped up in a pretty package inside an age-old African supply house it sat: a Dell Dimension. Would it boot? Would it be DOA? And, more importantly, how would Dell Services provide six-hour support when the village was a 16-hour hike from the nearest port?
- We don't know, but we made it back in time for Comdex. And that's where we heard whispers that Dell was having a time of it trying to get into the tablet PC space.
- Dell is out in Asia sampling OEM designs for tablet PCs. The company actually had selected a vendor, but after reviewing the evaluation unit, Dell spiked the unit. That means Dell will not be in the tablet PC space for at least a year.
- Naysayers can talk down high tech's show of shows all they want. The numbers may be down, but the star power was there in full force--with everyone from actor Kevin Spacey touting his new Web venture, to former Guns n' Roses guitarist Slash jamming on stage with Advanced Micro Devices CEO Hector Ruiz, to movie megamogul George Lucas bad-mouthing content and software piracy.
- Biggest faux pas of the show: Comdex CEO Fredric Rosen introducing Sun CEO Scott McNealy, touting McNealy's ability to compete in the "corporate bedroom" rather than boardroom. He corrected himself, but McNealy rolled with the punches and simply came out stretching like he had just woken up. That's one introduction he had never heard, said McNealy, who told one of the Sun execs who assisted him in a demo to get back to the corporate bedroom.
- Most inspiring performance of the show: Although Slash was a sight to behold, strumming his guitar to "Rockin' on 64," a takeoff of Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," and George Lucas just standing around is bigger than life, the award goes to "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh, who struck all the right chords in his address at the Hewlett-Packard ChiliFest 2002 to benefit the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children. Walsh noted it's been a particularly tough year with many abductions and gave a horrifying account of a sheriff who ignored a couple's plea at a fair to search for their missing 14-year-old daughter and then neglected to contact the FBI for five days.
- The ChiliFest entertainment this year was provided by Herman's Hermits' Peter Noone, who kept the chili crowd hoppin' to the crazy beat of the '60s.
- Speaking of the ChiliFest, the brochure for the event featured Michael Capellas with his old title,president of HP,and old bio. WorldCom, Capellas' new company, was nowhere to be found at Comdex.
- We didn't get any inside update on the potential bankruptcy filing of Comdex producer Key3Media. As for the show numbers, the company didn't have final numbers but our own cabbie-in-the-know claims that the finally tally was 41,800 attendees with only 950 exhibitors of an expected 2,500 showing up. By the way, our cabbie claims he took a 50 percent revenue hit this year, on top of a 40 percent drop last year.