Sep 00 Getting Started
Volume Number: 16
Issue Number: 9
Column Tag: Getting Started
MacWorld New York 2000
by John C. Welch
The Network Manager's eye view
Welcome To The Show
The New York MacWorld Expo was a ground breaking show in many ways. Firstly, we
have the attendance figure of 61,250 attendees. While well below this year's San
Francisco number of over 85,000 attendees, it was a third more people than last
year's New York MacWorld Expo, and well over the best figures for the best of the
fabled Boston MacWorld Expos. A jump in the numbers like this is good for many
reasons, but one of the important ones is that it's a sign that the New York move is
finally picking up the numbers it needs to stand on its own, without being compared to
shows from the Boston heyday. Attendance numbers like this year's also means that
vendors who may have previously ignored New York for the larger San Francisco show
will think twice about that next year. Finally, for the first time, there were no huge
empty areas of show floor, not-so-cleverly hidden behind partitions.
Keynote
But enough cheerleading, what about the show itself? Well, from my point of view, it
was excellent all the way around. The keynote was, as usual, an example of
showmanship at its finest. Steve Jobs' famed Reality Distortion Field was working its
usual magic, although considering the state of Apple the last few years, it no longer
needs to work quite as hard. The hardware announcements were welcome indeed. As an
administrator, I am very pleased to no longer have to automatically toss out the
standard Apple mouse and keyboard that comes with the Macs we buy. And, although
this may sound unusual for a corporate environment, the fact that the new mouse is
very pleasing to the eye is a bigger bonus than you might think.
The announcement of the multi-processor G4 Macs was not that unusual to anyone who