Date: Fri, 29 Nov 1996 19:41:12 -0800 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: COMDEX trip report.. Message-ID: <14781.849325272@time.cdrom.com>
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OK, now that I've finally started recovering from the virulent cold I caught at COMDEX (or on the virus-tube they called the SouthWest flight home), I can sit down for a second and talk about it. :-) First, for those who don't know the details, David and I went to COMDEX this year to try out a new concept that Walnut Creek CDROM came up with - a 3 part booth, one part of which would be dedicated solely to FreeBSD, another part (on the opposite side of the wall) being the Slackware Linux booth and the main part being the Walnut Creek CDROM area. Since we couldn't even *see* the Linux booth staffers during the show, I'm afraid that all those rubber bands went to waste, though I did manage to bean one of them with a ballistically-thrown FreeBSD T-shirt. :-) What can I say about the show... First the cons: It seems like COMDEX has become something of an entertainment event, with people who clearly wouldn't know a computer if it slithered up to their pants leg and took a bite now in large attendence. As I overheard one vendor say to another: "What is it with the crowd this year? I think I saw my *grandmother* just walk by!" :-) I could also list the show's being in Las Vegas as a major strike against it, that city now being the adult version of Disneyland (where Minnie and Mickey have a he-she love act on stage instead of walking around and hugging terrified children), but that would probably be petty and rather useless besides since it's *always* in Las Vegas and there's nothing we can do about it. Our hotel was the usual fleabag, but it was at least close to the conference center. My only regret was that I didn't think to sneak over to the salepeople's room in the middle of the night and drop a quarter in someone's vibrating bed. My own vibro-bed also went unused for anything but coma-like sleep, me being too tired each night to even notice the control box. Now the pros: We had a lot of interest in FreeBSD. The separate booth idea really worked well, and a lot of people who would have otherwise had to specifically sift through Walnut Creek CDROM's 50+ CD collection for our stuff were able to come straight to the FreeBSD side and ask us questions. We made a number of contacts, had very good sales, and answered the "How is Linux different from FreeBSD?" question approximately 5,417,981 times. Needless to say, we did a sales pitch on each and every one and made quite a few direct and possible converts. Another big surprise for me were the number of people who asked about a FreeBSD/ALPHA port. David thinks this is largely because the Linux Pavilion (a rather grand word for 5 different Linux vendors in the same general location :-) was showing off a bunch of Linux/ALPHA boxes, but it was nonetheless a surprise. Those who are genuinely interested (and able to work on!) an ALPHA port should probably start trading email addresses back and forth, since there definitely appears to be some demand. I also made or renewed quite a few vendor contacts, and hopefully some of the Linux ISVs will be sending me copies of their software for FreeBSD ceritification in the next few months. There appeared to be genuine enthusiasm for the idea, which was nice to see. SMC also approached me and asked if I knew of any software hackers willing to write UNIX drivers for them, which was kind of odd. :-) All in all, it was a good show! We'll be at the Atlanta COMDEX next spring, definitely. Jordan
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