CES 2010 will have a dedicated iLounge pavilion for everything Apple
Update 1: we just received a response from the CEA press office. Although they did not respond to our question about Shapiro’s dinner comments on Apple’s presence, they did confirm that they invited Apple CEO Steve Jobs to keynote at CES 2010. More at the end of the post.
Update 2: The WSJ finally changed its story headline from “Will Apple CEO attend CES ’10″ to will he “headline” the event. I guess that says it all?
Depending on who you read – the Wall Street Journal or leading gadget blog Engadget - Apple will, or actually will not attend next year’s largest consumer electronics show in Las Vegas.
And we did send an email to CEA, the organisers of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to find out what really was said during this “dinner de cons!”
The organisers of CES has yet to confirm the comments of its chief Gary Shapiro (pictured) about Apple's presence at the show's 2010 edition
The controversy: did the WSJ reporter “exaggerate” CES’ chief comments?
According to the respectable business daily, Apple plans to attend the show – which will have a dedicated “iLounge” pavilion for Apple related products – next January “marking the first time in memory the Cupertino, Calif., consumer-electronics giant will be there.”
But for Engadget founder Peter Rojas who also attended the media dinner hosted by CEA on Tuesday in San Francisco, CEO Gary Shapiro made it “very clear that Apple would not be exhibiting at CES 2010. In fact, when asked if CEA could make space for them if they did happen to change their minds he said it may be possible to find them a limited amount of floorspace.”
Rojas added in his comments to the Wall Street Journal story that “at no point during the discussion did he [Gary Shapiro] ever indicate that Apple would be participating in any formal way at CES. Nor did he even imply that there was an outside chance that Steve Jobs would keynote, which is suggested by your linkbaiting headline. I’m frankly a little shocked that anyone could have come out of the dinner with a post like this.”
And who cares?
But as Apple explained in it’s reasons to leave MacWorld, “trade shows [like MacWorld or CES] have become a very minor part of how” it reaches its customers.
So my guesstimate, is that Apple – like it did in the past – will simply host smaller launch events, either in its Cupertino campus or in San Francisco and just skip those big venues. And that’s the end of it.
CEA’s response on the “Apple affair”:
Apple is a valued member of the Consumer Electronics Association. As for the 2010 International CES, we have invited Steve Jobs to keynote. Should he accept our invitation, he would join an outstanding keynote lineup that includes Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and Paul Otellini of Intel. Apple has not signed up to exhibit at the 2010 CES, but there will be more Apple-related products at the show than ever before in our exciting new iLounge Pavilion. The iLoungePavilion is a unified iPod®, iPhone® and Mac® exhibition area, that will be located in South 2 of the LVCC. The exhibit will display manufacturers and retailers of iPod and iPhone applications, along with accessories and other related services and products. The exhibit space has already grown from 4,000 sf to 25,000 sf due to high demand.
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