PCExpo ain’t gettin’ no respect. And I think there might be some behind-the-scenes chicanery taking place here in the Big Apple. For starters, the buzz here was far short of what I’ve seen in previous years. This was, after all, one of the more important trade shows in the industry not so long ago. Moreover, Microsoft and IBM delivered something of a strike against PCExpo on Wednesday by holding a Web services ‘technical briefing’ here in NYC, not all that far from the Jacob Javits Center in which PCExpo is taking place. Rather than make that event part of the conference, however, the two companies held it separately from PCExpo. My guess is that they figured since Bill Gates and Steve Mills would be there, members of the press would actually forego the bigger conference to come to their event. And while I myself thankfully did not have to do so, I would have if we had not have anyone else to attend. But even some of the folks that actually came to PCExpo, namely IBM and HP, don’t seem to be taking it as seriously as they have in the past. Again, both companies drummed up something to release, per the above link. For the most part, however, HP used PCExpo to host a multitude of briefings under non-disclosure agreement. From what I can tell, those meetings spanned from handhelds to notebooks to desktops. IBM even asked me to sign an NDA about some forthcoming BladeCenter news. I didn’t sign anything, but guess when the NDA’s for both companies lift, and when that news will be made public…Well, according to PR representatives from each, the news breaks in November. I may be going out on a limb here, but these guys might be using PCExpo to brief reporters on announcements they are planning for Comdex. Or, perhaps it’s just the conspiracy theorist in me manifesting. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. One conference I am really looking forward to, by the by, is MIT’s Emerging Technologies. That takes place next week and I’ll be joining my colleague Ed Scannell there, so we’ll be sure to write something up from that one. Technology Industry