Battle Royale: CES 2007 vs. MacWorld Expo 2007

CES Logo

Why do they have to be on the same dates? Is it to show who’s got the world’s attention? To show who really commands consumer choices? Will Michael Dell have fewer listeners because Steve Jobs will be speaking at the same time in another place?

Come Monday, January 8th, the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show reels off in Las Vegas, Nevada at the same time that Macworld Conference & Expo 2007 opens its doors at the adjacent state of California. CES 2007 will highlight the latest gadgets and gizmos to a world of adoring electronics consumers, while Macworld 2007 will draw public attention to a universe of peripherals that revolve around Apple and the Mac, essentially the same electronic gizmos that populate the CES booths.

Macworld Conference & Expo 2007

The San Francisco Macworld exhibit hall opens on Tuesday, January 9 at 11:00 a.m. and runs through Friday, January 12. The exhibit hall will feature the newest products and applications for the Mac platform from companies such as Adobe, Canon USA, Epson America, FileMaker, HP, Microsoft, Nikon, Quark, Xerox, XtremeMac and many others.

CES 2007, meanwhile, will occupy all of 1.6 million square feet of space – 30 football fields worth of sprawling exhibit area – to accommodate the 2,700 exhibitors who will cater to more than 150,000 visitors coming from 130 countries.

It’s a Battle Royale between both behemoths. And inside these giant trade shows are many battles too, fought by competing brands vying for the consumers’ attention with help from spectating hordes of media, gadget gurus and merchants.

[Links: Macworld, Wired Magazine, Digital Shutters, CNN]

Published by Chris Malinao

Chris teaches Lightroom as workflow software to photography students at the FPPF, Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation. He also teaches smartphone photography.