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The Cushman Report To subscribe to the email version of The Cushman Report, please send a note to info@jc-a.com with "subscribe" in the Subject line. Click here to view past editions. The Cushman Report Breaking News, Trends and Information about the Communications Marketplace November 2000 - COMDEX Post Mortem Happy Holiday season. Here’s a post mortem about Fall COMDEX 2000. I’ve also attached a technology assessment from my husband, Bob Quick, who attends the show with me and who is the CIO of a startup in the Seattle area. MORE WORK -- SECOND TIER EXHIBITORS THE LOOK OF COMDEX – WHO IS WHO – IN THE CLOTHING HIERARCHY The Men of COMDEX (The Vast Majority) The Women of COMDEX From the moment I arrived in Las Vegas, I felt the strain and tension of PR people who were tired, overwhelmed and stretched too thin. There was no margin to be nice. The attitude was, "I know you are going to ask me to do something beyond what I am supposed to do. I'm prepared to say no so I won’t have to deal with your need." Instead of an open, flexible approach and a sense of humor to solve the many problems that crop up, people were at their limits. There was no emotional reserve. These shows are becoming more work than ever before with fewer resources and less preparation time. As companies cut back their executive presence, the more senior PR staff members opt to stay home. (They hate the grind.) They send their junior and middle-level talent, along with agency Account Executives (good doers) to schedule media interviews and represent their company at these scaled down events. These less experienced team members are more prone to being overwhelmed by the intensity of the show and to "burnout." Demands of the clients (either internal or external) can be unrealistic and require setting firm limits. The junior staffers, however, are just not mature or sure enough of their authority to say no. The result is a feeling of being in over their heads and a loss of confidence in their ability to assume authority or make decisions. MORE WORK -- SECOND TIER EXHIBITORS COMDEX started out as a show about hardware, about personal computers and about the excitement of a New World view revolutionized by technology. It was a leading edge happening for the hard working elite who knew how to have fun. The industry has matured, the show is in search of a new focus and everything has changed. It is no longer fun, except for maybe a few hardy party-goers who stay up late and join the movers and shakers at (strict) invitation only venues. Bill Gates was jumping enthusiastically (Geeks are not known for their finesse) on the dance floor at the Katt party. But even at COMDEX, which has traditionally been Microsoft’s playground, there was a dose of reality as a security person stood watch. (HP’s Carly Fiorina had her bodyguard, as well) There were a few other less exclusive events where you could have a good time -- EDS threw a big bash at the McCarren airport hangar. On a humorous note, the temperature was not much above freezing and the "rest rooms" were very chilly port-a-potties outside the building. I didn’t observe much heavy drinking. Novell hosted a major party with Dana Carvey as the featured entertainer and Microsoft reinvented the GeekFest moving it from the traditional Wednesday blowout to a strict invite only "happening" event for the press and friends at Studio 54 in the MGM Grand. The big party scene is fading and taking its place are evening events that are smaller shows within shows. Silicon Northwest was one of the first -- themed to showcase exciting young companies from the region served up with a gourmet selection of Pacific Northwest cuisine. The concept has been adopted by "event planners" and major companies sponsoring "partner pavilions." Show Stoppers, DigitalFocus, MobileFocus, HomeFocus, ImageFX and the Palm Partner Pavilion are all examples of this trend. What this means is PR representatives are working with media on behalf of their clients from the moment they sit down to breakfast meetings until they wrap up at 10 or 11pm at night. It is non-stop mentally and physically. It takes focus, tension building concentration and sheer willpower to get through the relentless scheduling. Which is, in my opinion, why the fun is gone. My overall impression is that the main exhibitors in the South Hall of the Convention Center (which is the premier space for companies) has been purchased by second tier players wanting to make a mark or draw attention. Gone are the national brands with some few exceptions -- Palm for competitive product positioning issues, HP because of its re-branding effort and SONY for leadership in the convergence between the entertainment and technology space. Otherwise, it’s the likes of Toshiba and Hitachi printer/hardware companies that are occupying the impressive square footage. Being "on the floor," or throwing big parties (one company reallocated the $80,000 for its annual bash into a national seminar program for customers with great success) is giving way to smaller more targeted activities. COMDEX attracted a smaller crowd this fall than in its heyday. It felt decidedly less energetic on the floor (similar to last year) and was easier to get through the aisles. One seasoned veteran who has been at the last 15 shows said that COMDEX peaked three years ago and the numbers have been coming down ever since. He guessed attendance at below 175,000 even though the official count was projected at 200,000. I agree. COMDEX is a show in search of relevance and vitality. COMDEX is becoming a three tiered marketing opportunity -- one for visibility, positioning and branding through the keynotes. The second is for smaller, young companies to attract attention (off the show floor) and to compete in categories against "major players." This is where the shows within shows are such cost-effective use of budgets. The third is in the international arena where overseas companies connect with potential US business partners and attract media attention in the high tech trade press. Where I did see interesting new companies was in the North Hall. Security is becoming a major technology issue. There seem to be two directions -- biometrics and firewall installations -- with the firewall people saying biometrics (unique identifying characteristics such as thumbprints or retina patterns to allow users access to secure information) were no solutions at all. The issue is growing in importance and e-businesses realize (painfully) that security concerns, whether actual or perceived, are significant impediments to on-line transactions. Potential customers are very unsure if methods used to encrypt transactions will protect their personal information. By next year I’m sure there will more clarity about which products will lead the market segment. Off the floor at the Mobile shows, I was overwhelmed by the number of redundant products in the handheld, PDA, wireless e-mail retrieval categories. It was totally unclear which products offered more/better features for specific customer profiles. In the "Palm" niche, it seemed there were so many competing choices that the market would have to shake out within the year. Being first and owning over a 65% market share gives Palm a tremendous advantage. Building the brand really does matter. (In a press conference, Palm mentioned that there are thousands of developers writing code for its products.) Overriding the issue of which product to choose, is the need for bandwidth, convenience and reliability (a robust network, access anytime, anywhere). The wireless world where machines talk to each other and we can seamlessly share information untethered to a PC in the office or at home, is still years away. We all see it coming but right now there are no clear solutions or directions; it’s time for experimenting and confusion. I was hoping to see more progress and more products on the market in the voice recognition category. When we reach a point that we can comfortably talk to a computer, I see a tremendous breakthrough in use of tools -- PCs, wireless and hands free devices -- to a mass market that is simply not able to express itself confidently in writing or by using a keyboard. Think of all those cell phone users that are perfectly comfortable with a portable device and are adept at leaving voice mail messages -- that’s the target. I did see one voice recognition product that I will test. It was able to execute commands asking for on-line information and required virtually no training or "tuning" to understand the user. We are getting closer. THE LOOK OF COMDEX -- WHO IS WHO -- IN THE CLOTHING HEIRARCHY (Just for Fun) The Men of COMDEX (The Vast Majority) COMDEX attracts male "tekkies" and business executives. Customers (again, mostly male) who are not in the senior (I need to impress) category look decidedly like they threw whatever was in their top drawer (and clean) in the duffel bag and carried it on the plane to Vegas along with one pair of Dockers grabbed out of the dryer. Male (again) consultants, presenters and sales managers are in suits. Marketing representatives and sales staff (male and female on the floor) are in pressed Dockers and (blue?) oxford cloth cleaner-laundered shirts with a logo. Senior corporate officers, who are COMDEX regulars and hate to dress, wear dark slacks, pressed shirts and blazers. Ties are out. The least concerned with what they wear, are the media (again the men outnumber the women significantly) -- and it shows. A favorite, comfortable polo shirt no matter what pattern, no matter what the age or vintage can be worn with any color pants and comfortable shoes (or sneakers). No one notices or cares. What matters is the media badge -- the signal that this is an important person, a VIP that security guards will allow virtually anywhere. The Women of COMDEX Because there are so few women attending and because so many of these women at COMDEX are in Public Relations, I have been able to identify the breed. I could spot a PR woman at COMDEX in less than a minute. (PR women outnumbered PR men by an 8 to 1 ratio, at least.) She was under 35, attractive (I did not see any obese PR representatives) Caucasian (with rare exception), under 5’7", mostly dark haired, applied makeup to achieve a professional look, and wore the "uniform." The uniform was a black pants suit with square-toed, low stack heeled shoes (very rarely black flats). She could be wearing a light sweater or casual blouse, with very little jewelry or accessories. There were no impediments to moving quickly -- no scarves, pins or rings that could get in the way and no necklaces that dangled. This was a no nonsense style to dress for action and (sometimes) hauling boxes or press kits. The outfit was acceptable for all occasions from daytime business meetings to evening receptions -- no need to change and no time for that anyway. The suit was non-descript enough to be worn more than once and not be noticed. Take the jacket off and the outfit was casual enough for a late party -- perfectly versatile. One observation -- the later the evening, the more social the behavior and the less clear the line between acceptable behavior and unwanted attention. I wonder if this is a problem for women at shows when their social skills (which are desirable in the PR field) and ability to keep the client (boss) or more senior (male) coworker happy lead to confusion and difficult situations. I’d welcome comments. That’s all from me. Please do glance at our Job Opportunities. Bob Quick, CIO -- Officeparts.com -- bobquick@att.net Microsoft HAS become an infrastructure provider. For the first time, their partner pavilion was uncrowded, in fact most of the exhibitors were talking to each other. Microsoft operating systems and technology were everywhere, but under the covers. When looking at an application on a computer you’re really not aware if it’s an AMD or Intel processor, and you probably don’t care. Likewise for Microsoft. If Microsoft technology was being used you didn’t particularly notice it. There wasn’t anything new or exciting, or even very interesting at Microsoft. I mentioned universal connectivity two years ago, but didn’t really take it very far. Last year (99), was the year of digital consumer content; cameras, MP3, digital video, and wireless devices for e-mail and simple web connectivity. This year, it dawned on developers that people were accumulating gigabyte upon gigabyte of material -- what are they going to DO with it. Vendors were showing many, many high bandwidth connectivity solutions. Wireless, power line, telephone wire, home Ethernets. There were many devices to display or use digital content. It sure looks like MP3 is here to stay in computers, home music, car systems, and portable devices. One of my favorite products was an MP3 player from a company called Hy-Tec. It has a 10 gig IBM microdrive and will play 150 hours of music…my complete CD collection! It’s also the size of my Palm m100 and will have a srp of $399, just inside the impulse limit. It was clear at Comdex that we are in a fluid and evolving technological situation. Devices very rapidly will become more and more connected with high bandwidth solutions, and particularly hand held devices. Many or these devices have their own embedded operating systems, but most of the independent developers were using some variation of Linux. I think we’re really at the point of content independence from platform. I’m looking at my own situation. I work with a PC at home and a PC at work. I synchronize e-mail and files between them with a service provider on the Internet (fusionOne). While on the road, I can use a browser on any computer to view my personal and business e-mail through AT&T. I can also edit my stored documents with ThinkFree Office. My original Palm Pilot 500 finally died (Pieces of plastic were falling off, it was mummified in tape, and it had a hard reboot twice in a week, losing all it’s memory. My earliest appointment was June 1996). I got an m100 because I just didn’t see any value in spending an extra $300. Much to my surprise, I find myself using, and loving, AventGo and Vindigo to easily and automatically download content like movie schedules and restaurant reviews when I synch routinely. Now I want my Palm to synch wirelessly. (BTW, while sitting here writing this, I’m connected to CNN listening to streaming content in the background. I’m about to look up turkey stuffing recipes in another window. I’m trying to figure out if it’s worth it to get wireless access in my bedroom.) I subscribe to a service (Simulring) that gives me one permanent phone number to give to people. I have it simultaneously ring three different numbers, and if I don’t answer any in four rings it goes to one voice mailbox. I just turned down CNN because it was too distracting, and started playing on my computer an MP3 album from my other computer on the other side of the house. And I’m shooting over the latest digital pictures of our house remodel to my mother in Florida. Now, I live in a leading edge technological environment because I like to, but the change in my perspective about the availability of communication and information is really amazing. And it’s all happened since 1998. Prior, the only personal computer applications that really changed my personal (as opposed to professional) life were e-mail and word processing. Although I’m an early adopter, I usually just experiment, drop it and go on. All of the above technologies are now part of my life because they are useful and easy to use. I can’t wait to see the next two years. This is what I saw at COMDEX for small business applications… I’ve been looking at standard server based PBXs for a while. A PBX is just I/O on one end, I/O on the other, and software to manipulate it in between. If the hardware were capable, robust, and inexpensive (like Wintel or Linux servers of today), the value add of PBX developers is their software. Then we have serious price competition because you only need a few dozen really good developers to create really new features. Two vendors have reinvented the traditional PBX from the perspective of unified messaging devices and have dramatically lowered the price point. The more mature and feature rich is the Com2001. A newer device is the Flexion. Prices and features are going to continue to fall until a full-blown PBX is affordable for household use. They are going to sell these by the boxcar full. A note about Voice over IP. It isn’t quite there yet. The big boys are trying to keep it proprietary in spite of the lip service to standards. They still want to sell us those $400 sets. Quality is very good over private networks, but not acceptable over the public Internet. Besides, the other end has to be an IP hand set, and one compatible with the calling device. At COMDEX, though, there were literally dozens of manufacturers from Singapore, Taiwan, etc, showing VoIP between PCs. Sooner rather than later, we’re going to see cheap VoIP coming in the back door, with $9.95 handsets at Radio Shack. It’s just too compiling a proposition, and available bandwidth is growing rapidly. We’ll have POTS analog lines for a long time, and that’s where the Com2001 and Flexions will do well bridging the two systems. I’ve moved to a different company since last year. It’s an early phase start-up with the opportunity to implement all the technology from scratch. So this year at COMDEX I was looking for all the business applications: CRM, Web development, Supply Chain Management, Financials, Order Processing and Customer Service, inventory, etc. The company, OfficeParts.com, fits in perfectly with the trend to provide easy to use, easy to acquire technology that solves a problem. Basically we provide asset management of office equipment and easy ordering of consumables. Our sales model is outbound sales calls, and the business model describes a high cost of customer acquisition, but a low cost of customer retention and reordering through customer contact, or relationship, automation. We expect to surround the buying decision maker and connect to the buying organization through our technology, all of which will be customized and integrated standard applications. Leading edge, but not bleeding edge. At my last gig, I integrated ISV provided CRM with ISV provided financials and Order Processing/Customer Service. The applications had been developed before the explosion of Internet and Web, and three-tier relational database technology. They were originally designed as traditional client/server, fat client inward facing applications, even the CRM product. They were very expensive and very time consuming and resource intensive to buy, install, and integrate. At COMDEX, there were four or five CRM products, and four or five financial/order processing/inventory products that had been designed very recently from scratch to be engines for electronic business. They were fully relational and very open in architecture. They are also much less expensive. I’m going to have to do a lot more research before committing, but it appears the increase in technology sophistication, and competition are working their magic again, and basic business applications are reaching a new, lower price point level. I suspect, though, that the amount of customization will still be the same because business has always taken advantage of the opportunities technology has created for it. |
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Judith Cushman & Associates 15600 NE 8th St., Suite B1, PMB 178, Bellevue, WA 98008 s (425) 392-8660 Fax (425) 746-8629jcushman@jc-a.com s www.jc-a.com The Judith Cushman & Associates web team would appreciate feedback concerning this site. Please e-mail your comments, questions and suggestions to heathers@jc-a.com. |
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