Microsoft disappears from Telecomms show, booth
collapses
EXPOCOMM Argentina 2006 Plus, other notable absences
By Fernando Cassia in Argentina: Monday 09 October 2006,
09:15
HERE LAST YEAR the INQ was closely watched by the Microsoft Vole,
but this year the Redmond Juggernaut was strangely absent from the
exhibitors list , so I had no chance to poke fun at the Evil
Empire. My only contact at the Vole refused to comment.
But the list of noteworthy absences continues... despite making a
big landing both in terms of money and market-domination intent,
Carlos Slim's telco, TelMex had no booth at the show. Only the
mobile arm of the Mexican empire -CTI- was present, and it was a
real pity because I'm sure TelMex fixed-wireless Phone+Internet
services would have attracted quite a crowd, specially those of us
like this scribbler who's fed up with the incumbent fixed line
providers.
Also absent was, once again, Sun Microsystems and Novell. I really
don't know what they're thinking. Surely they have a PR/advertising
budget, but use it on something else. This show is the perfect
opportunity to have a direct contact with thousands of customers
-even a small booth would have sufficed to promote Sun's StarOffice
and OpenOffice and the open standards speech, for instance, or
mobile Java games and applications, and in the case of Novell's,
the company's linux based solutions. They should learn from folks
at MercadoLibre, the local auctions site affiliated with eBay,
which manages every year to do a big marketing effort with a tiny
booth but using an inexpensive yet effective approach which is
handing over thousands of free yellow plastic bags so visitors can
carry on the tons of leaflets handed during the show. As a result,
everywhere you go there's a MercadoLibre bag and logo within eye
sight.
Asked why didn't Datco had a booth this year, a company employee
who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said "we are
concentrating on Silica Networks, our fibre optic backbone, and we
felt that such a carrier-grade business does not benefit much from
a consumer-oriented event like this one".
Booth Collapses, shocker!
Booth collapsed. No one was hurt.
One day before the end of the show, this scribbler was walking the
exhibition floor when a loud noise was heard. I originally thought
they were assembling -or disassembling- a new booth, but minutes
later I passed by the place where the noise came from: a complete
booth which was setup in a "two story" arrangement had
collapsed.
Mach Electronics. Speed can kill!
This scribbler asked around and was told that luckily nobody was
seriously hurt. After that incident, the booth at spot #F11 and
near the entrance -which belonged to Mach Electronics- remained
closed during the last day of the exhibition. So, believe me when I
tell you that these shows are dangerous business.
Solid solutions...
This must be the famous Southern Cone?