LinuxWorld BOS no more

[Ted Roche]

On Jun 22, 2006, at 9:32 PM, Bill Ricker wrote:

> "Collusion" is a loaded word.

I choose a strong word. From the article:

"During the 2006 Boston LWCE, sources indicated that HP and IBM  
choose to abide by a gentlemens' agreement not to have booths on the  
show floor for that show. According to sources at HP, they can spend  
up to US$2 million for a show, booth materials, floor space,  
marketing, travel, and lodging. An IBM source revealed that the two  
vendors entered into a "if you don't display, we won't display"  
agreement."

>> I thought the choice of the new conference center hurt their chances
>> of attracting attendees.
>
> The new conference center had an early-adopter problem that the
> attached hotel isn't open until next month. It killed MacWorld Boston
> fast that way too.

Talking with one of the vendors, he complained that "150,000 people  
work within a mile of the Hynes" but that no one walked by the  
conference center. The remote location was, in his opinion, a major  
deterrent to attendees.

> The show certainly LOOKS smaller in the new bigger conference center.
> Some of that is  some companies having smaller or partner-only or no
> presence -- and I'm thinking not just of the big obvious ones but a
> certain O'Reilly-competitor was in a 10' booth in 2006 instead of a
> 20' in 2005, and I think O'Reilly may have had less floor space too,
> although still 3-4x the smaller presses.

Well, I know a bit about the trade press. These folks are not doing  
well. I was pleased to see them there at all.

>> It's a real disappointment; there's a lot of Open Source activity in
>> New England and not having a show lowers its visibility.
>
> Open source is by it's nature at least less-, and sometimes non-,
> commercial. The big- money for-profit folks leveraging FLOSS for their
> investors' profit are going to send more folks from HQ to a local show
> -- that's in SF -- than a sleep-away show, both as buyers and as
> sellers, which is self-enhancing loop: more customers, more marketing
> guys show up. Who has a big marketing arm in Boston? Data General?
> DEC? Wang? Lotus?  Oops, wrong decade. We even lost our computer games
> company.
>
> Boston has major biotech shows now.

And biotech uses... computers! Along with Boston's financial,  
insurance, research, academic and government institutions. From Lotus  
to Route 128 and 495, there's a lot of east coast computer industry  
clustered in Boston. I think the show failed to appeal to the  
audience, failed to set the right tone and bring in the right people.  
There's a reason why WANG and DEC and Basic/4 and DG had a major  
presence here, and that hasn't changed with the rise and fall of  
Silicon Valley.

> I'll miss LinuxWorld Boston because I don't get travel $$ to go to
> away conferences.

Same here. It's all out of pocket.

> We'd have a better shot at a developers-and-geeks
> OSCON style conference here than a marketing glitz show.  Some year
> we'll get our act together and host YAPC in Boston. If that goes over
> well we could consider trying to throw a OSCON-EAST, but that would be
> a lot of work -- would need deep committee drawn from _all_ the LUGs
> and *UG's from the rest of LAMP.

Wow. You're ambitious! It sounds like fun, and something I'd be glad  
to help with. In the meantime, I'm trying to move the local LUGs along.

Ted Roche
Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
http://www.tedroche.com