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TRADESHOW REPORT
Pragmatic optimism at Internet World Wireless 2002
By Theodore Durst
There's usually a lot going on at trade shows. You can tell by the noise, the crowds, and the ever-present shuffle of gewgaws and logo emblazoned T-shirts flying out of booths and into the crowd. Yes, it can be difficult to make sense with all of the chaos, but still, shows are one of the best ways to get the skinny on what's really being said behind the cleverly crafted press releases.
This year's Internet World Wireless show held at Jacob Javit's Convention Center was a welcome chance to catch up on what's new in the wireless sector. Judging from the size of the turnout, the industry is about a quarter of the size it was in 2001. While the attendees came far from packing Javits, those that came were not disappointed.
Whether at a booth in the exhibitor's hall or in the roundtable sessions, the mood was decidedly one of pragmatic optimism. These are the companies that are surviving the "dot bust" and the attacks of September 11th. As evidence of this new-found pragmatism, they were addressing today's IT problems with solutions that are real and available now (as opposed to the fluff and hype we have seen in past conferences). Everybody seems focused on getting through today and hoping that tomorrow will take care of itself.
Handheld devices
The key themes were a bit surprising, considering that this was supposed to be a wireless show. There was little talk this year of wireless devices. Even Microsoft, with what was arguably the loudest presentation on the exhibit floor, was preaching the gospel of wireless applications. To be fair, they did talk a bit about the new Smartphone. The integrated PDA/Phones like the Handspring Treo and Microsoft's Smartphone are exciting, but Handspring was a no-show, and the Smartphone won't be available till later in 2002. The new thinking has it that wireless devices are primarily important as an interface to back-end applications.
Not surprisingly, discussion tended to center around the enterprise market (another sign that capitalism has come back into fashion). Cerylion (at http://www.cerylion.com), Cysive (at http://www.cysive.com), and Sybase (at http://www.sybase.com) were promoting development solutions for wireless applications on a number of platforms such as the Palm OS, Pocket PC, Symbian, and Blackberry. Brience, which I talked about last year, was another no-show, possibly due to their merger with HelloAsia.
The industry appears to be acknowledging that that there will be no "one" handheld device that everyone will carry. So, what happened to the PDA platform wars? Are we all just getting along better after September 11th? I'll let you know next year.
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