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Apple Bails on NAB ‘08

Rumors had been circulating for some time, but today Apple made it official. It won’t have a booth at NAB 2008. An Apple spokesperson said, “It’s true that we won’t have a booth at NAB. Apple is participating in fewer trade shows every year, because often there are better ways for us to reach our customers.”

Another NLE vendor cited similar reasons for pulling out of the show earlier this year. Is this a sea change? Are trade shows fading in importance? Or, is it that there’s not enough money in the post-production software business to justify a $6 million, one-week jaunt in Vegas each year? What do you think?

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The internet as an information resource has certainly reduced the need to attend user group meetings and trade shows, read magazines, and the such. Meanwhile, trade shows and magazines are expensive to produce. This probably an inevitable trend.

Posted by Chris Meyer  on  02/07  at  04:05 PM

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I do think they’ll get some heat over their blanket reply to the effect of “plenty of people visit our web site and Apple stores.” Um, not a TV station looking to move up to HD and/or switch over from another system, they don’t. And even here in media-savvy Southern California, Trish had to bail out an Apple store employee who had no clue how to advice a customer wanting to buy a system for FCP (under most circumstances, the in-store staff is excellent, but this was out of their depth…).

Posted by Chris Meyer  on  02/07  at  04:05 PM

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What does this say for the state of the market if anything?  Besides selling new products and upgrades, attending a show like NAB (despite the likely inflated traffic figures), offers a chance to get closer to your customers and partners.

Print magazines have gone from thick (2002) to pamphlets as of recently.  Tradeshows from very, very large, to a fraction of their size.  The vendor community is really cutting back.  Let’s hope the innovation and R&D;continue, at Apple and elsewhere.

Posted by Scott Gentry  on  02/07  at  04:11 PM

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i have to say maybe this isnt the last of news to come from Apple about NAB.
Trade shows cost a load of money to send staff , set up a booth , schmooze buyers etc.
It gets bit boring after a couple years as well.
Plus they (Vegas ) just loves when NAB comes to town the prices hike up another 25 percent for those 2 weeks.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/07  at  04:34 PM

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No wonder it was easy to get a room for NAB this year…..

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/07  at  05:03 PM

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Also, bear in mind that most television station budgets are geared toward the digital broadcast transition at the moment. I think that 2008 will be a year in which not a lot of production gear will be upgraded, so there’s less reason for certain vendors to be there.

Posted by Isaac Botkin  on  02/09  at  09:09 AM

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It goes toward some rumors about apple wanting to sell its pro software division. Costing them too much money comparing with their prolific consumer products.

Sorry for the crappy english.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  on  02/11  at  06:04 AM

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