Macworld Expo without Steve Jobs in 2009 and Apple in 2010--My Take

Apple announced this week that Steve Jobs would not be doing his usual keynote at the Macworld Expo 2009 coming this January 5-9 but that Phil Schiller, Apple SVP for Worldwide Product Marketing, would. In addition, Apple announced that it would not be exhibiting at future Macworld Expos.

After going to Macworld Expos in New York and San Francisco for many years, this news is a shock but really not unexpected. I have been one of the Mac minions who have made the journey year after year since the middle 90's to marvel at Steve Jobs' keynote delivery in person, be among the first to get my hands on Apple's newest stuff and see all the Mac third party software and peripherals, much of it new each year. Of course, I did so as the Publisher and Editor in Chief of MacsOnly! when it was a daily news and magazine Web site.

As most macophiles know, Phil Schiller usually joins Steve Jobs on stage and does much of the demo work in the typical Steve Jobs keynote address at the Macworld Expo. He does a great job. Remember all those speed tests he did year after year showing the Mac turning a comparable Windows box into toast? Remember him leaping off a platform holding the first iBook to illustrate how indestructible the clamshell notebook was? While Steve Jobs not doing the keynote address is a significant loss to the relative few who manage to get into the key address, I don't think anyone will be unsatisfied with Phil Schiller's rendition. Still, without the charismatic Steve it won't be the same.

Apple used to use the Macworld Expos as the place to announce and show off its latest and greatest software and hardware. But as Apple developed the Apple Retail Store network and used the Worldwide Developers Conference in Summer and other special events throughout the year to announce new stuff more strategically, it became more difficult to maintain an impact in announcements at an annual event like Macworld Expo. In fact, many wrote about how disappointing the announcements were in recent years, illustrating that this feature of Macworld Expo has already lost its luster. Why support a large expensive trade show booth for a few tens of thousands when millions can see and touch the new stuff at Apple Stores for no additional outlay? While the loss of Steve Jobs as the keynoter will be missed, the loss of once a year seeing new Apple stuff has already basically died a natural death.

Will the loss of Steve Jobs and Apple eventually kill the Macworld Expo in San Francisco as it did on the East Coast? I hope not. The real tangible benefits of the Macworld Expo are its seminars, third party exhibitors and Mac camaraderie. While first as an accepted journalist and later as unaccepted journalist who had to finesse his way into the keynote as IDG dreamed up ways to keep Mac news web sites out, I still think the best parts of the Macworld Expo were the seminars, the show floor's third party exhibitors and Mac camaraderie. Hopefully, Macworld Expo in San Francisco will find a way to persist even though the East Coast version did not.

My 2 cents. [Bill Fox]

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