The autumn 2003 trade show season will begin to heat up this week with TechXNY.
The conference, which includes the three-day PC Expo trade show, will take over Manhattan's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center between Monday and Thursday. Presentation themes will range from wireless networking to the outsourcing of information technology, its organisers said.
Despite some signs that the technology industry is recovering, TechXNY and its PC Expo trade show will be smaller this year. The show will host 225 exhibitors and two keynotes for an expected crowd of about 30,000, mostly local corporate information technology attendees, said Christina Condos, TechXNY's show director.
"This year what you'll see, theme-wise, is mobile and wireless, storage, outsourcing as well as security and, of course PCs, as always," she said.
The number of exhibitors and attendees expected this year is lower than the turnout in 2002. Given the current economic environment, many companies decided not to attend this year but hope to return in 2004, Condos said.
"We're adapting to what's happening in the industry and we're looking forward to next year," she said.
While it will be smaller, the show will retain its focus on corporate IT. OutsourceWorld, which attracts companies looking to win outsourcing business, will be one of the largest forums at the show. There will also be pavilions on security, storage and content management.
This year's keynote speakers are set to discuss innovation in the IT sector. The Tuesday afternoon address by Kevin Rollins, Dell's president, is expected to argue that product innovation will continue despite the increasing rate at which computers are built using off-the-shelf parts.
Hector Ruiz, chief executive of AMD, will give a speech Wednesday afternoon that's expected to tout the company's Opteron processor and its ambition to change corporate computing by offering an inexpensive path from 32-bit computing to 64-bit computing.
Dell and the National Cristina Foundation will also launch a program that will allow show attendees to donate their PCs to organisations in the New York area. Dell will provide kiosks at the show to let attendees input their information and arrange for pick-up of their PCs.
New products
Several other brand-name technology companies, including Hewlett-Packard and IBM, are expected to have a presence at the show.
HP will use PC Expo to unveil its latest consumer PCs and update its line of HP Compaq thin clients, basic computer terminals that display information and allow data entry for applications that are hosted on a remote server.
HP will unveil a pair of thin clients, the t5300 and t5500, which offer Transmeta Crusoe processors and cost $349 and $379 (£223 and £242), respectively, HP said.
HP will also announce several HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario desktops, set to be released in time for the holiday season. The desktops will come with enhanced software packages, designed to help increase the productivity and security in Presario models and the multimedia utility of Pavilion models.
HP's Presario S5000 desktops will come with antivirus and Internet firewall software from Symantec, as well as antispam and spyware-detection software from InterMute. HP will load its ImageZone software, which allows PC owners to archive and edit digital photos, on Pavilion a300 models. The first of the new desktops, which also sport larger hard drives and other hardware upgrades, are expected to hit stores at the end of September. The rest are due in October. Prices will range from about $460 to about $1,100, HP said.
IBM will use the show to announce upgrades to its ThinkCentre PC line. The company will add more processing power to its ThinkCentre S50, ThinkCentre M50 and ThinkCentre A50p desktops with models that have faster, 3.2GHz Pentium 4 processors. The ThinkCentre A30 will get a faster, 3.06GHz Pentium 4 model as well. Prices on the new desktops will range from $399 to $799, the company said.
IBM will also begin offering a multi-format DVD burner, which can read and write discs that use DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD+RW formats, as a $249 upgrade to ThinkCentre PCs, the company said.
A limited presence
Several other brand-name companies will participate in a more limited way. Gateway, for one, will be in New York to offer a look at some of its newest products, but the company will not have a booth at the show.
While some companies were limited by budgets, others found this year's show fell in between their product cycles. The mid-September date is early for some products, such as new tablet PCs, some companies said.
Some other companies are hosting their own shows. Intel, which normally has a large presence and a booth at PC Expo, is hosting its own event, the Intel Developer Forum, this week. As a result, it will not have a presence at PC Expo, a company representative said.
Although TechXNY moved from its traditional time slot in June to September this year, it promises to be more in sync with product cycles in 2004. TechXNY 2004 will take place during the week of 4 October, Condos said.
