[Janak Parekh]

OK, so I'm back from my trip out to the netherlands of midtown, Manhattan. That's right: I have pictures from CeBIT! And much, much more. Here's part one of four -- an overview on what I saw and heard.


The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center from the outside.

CeBIT America was held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which is located at 35th Street and 11th Avenue. Many big conferences, including PC Expo (the traditional annual technology conference in New York) are held there. For those of you who don't know New York, it's notable that it's well out of the heart of midtown, not near any form of subway service, and as such it's a pain to get to. Most people either suffer with the shuttle buses (slow), take a taxi (expensive), or walk. And for PC Expo, I'm indeed accustomed to seeing streams of people walking along 34th, 35th, and 36th Streets all three days of the conference.

Therefore, it was somewhat ominous when I noticed the streets were at their usual levels of desertion in the no-man's land on the west side. Maybe it's because it's the first year CeBIT America was held, or maybe it's the fact that we're in a slow economy, but the conference was not heavily attended. For those of you who have attended PC Expo, you know that it occupies most of the main show floor and the walkways between booths is absolutely packed, much like NYC streets. This was not the case at CeBIT. The floor was fairly quiet, and was about 25% smaller than last year's PC Expo. The keynotes were also sparsely attended (I attended the PalmSource one, which was filled to about 40% capacity, and the PeopleSoft one, which was perhaps 70% capacity). We toured the show floor in only about two hours, and this included spending the time to take pictures.


Javits' impressive-looking entrance area. Note that the registration lines are empty. Admittedly, this was late Wednesday afternoon, but the area was still very quiet!

Nevertheless, there were some golden nuggets at the conference. First, I had the fantastic opportunity to hook up and privately interview Mike Wehrs, Director of Technology and Standards in Microsoft's Mobility Group. As such, he's very involved in the high-level aspects of Pocket PC, Smartphone and related technologies and how they fit into the cellular and handheld industries. He is very knowledgeable and I was able to ask him about some of the hard questions: the availability of Smartphones in the US, Bluetooth in Pocket PC Phones and Smartphones, ActiveSync and more. Stay tuned for part three, where I discuss this interview.

Second, I was able to attend David Nagel's PalmSource keynote on Wednesday evening. This will be the basis for part four of the series, where I analyze what he said in detail, but it's very clear now that Palm has set its sights on the enterprise market and is working aggressively to play catch-up. I'll leave most of my insights for later, but in short, the keynote was very well-organized and David and his partners touched upon a number of important issues, including wireless data access, device management, enterprise application integration and more. (The one exception was the Sony part -- they focused entirely on multimedia, which has its niche applications, but ignored the rest of the issues raised in the keynote.) It will be interesting to see how far Palm can carry its vision; they have a long way to go, but they finally realize it.

But first, the gadgets! Part two of my series will be a photo tour of the show floor. While the show floor was small, as I previously mentioned, my colleague Suhit Gupta and I were still able to take over 150 pictures of various technologies. I'm still sorting through the pile to pick out the gems. In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures to whet your appetite.


Part of Sprint's current and upcoming phone lineup; from left-to-right, the Samsung SPH-i330 PalmOS smartphone, the Samsung A500, Toshiba 2032SP, the Samsung N400, the upcoming Samsung SPH-i500 PalmOS smartphone, the Treo 300, the upcoming Hitachi G1000 Pocket PC Phone Edition, the Hitachi P300, the LG 5350 and above the Sanyo SCP-5300, the Sprint camera and various Aircards.


The upcoming Handspring Treo 600. I'm still not quite sure how easy those buttons will be to press; they didn't have a unit outside for us to play with.


The Activu dual-display screen. I'll take one for my living room, please. :lol:

[Janak Parekh]

OK, so I'm back from my trip out to the netherlands of midtown, Manhattan. That's right: I have pictures from CeBIT! And much, much more. Here's part one of four -- an overview on what I saw and heard.


The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center from the outside.

CeBIT America was held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, which is located at 35th Street and 11th Avenue. Many big conferences, including PC Expo (the traditional annual technology conference in New York) are held there. For those of you who don't know New York, it's notable that it's well out of the heart of midtown, not near any form of subway service, and as such it's a pain to get to. Most people either suffer with the shuttle buses (slow), take a taxi (expensive), or walk. And for PC Expo, I'm indeed accustomed to seeing streams of people walking along 34th, 35th, and 36th Streets all three days of the conference.

Therefore, it was somewhat ominous when I noticed the streets were at their usual levels of desertion in the no-man's land on the west side. Maybe it's because it's the first year CeBIT America was held, or maybe it's the fact that we're in a slow economy, but the conference was not heavily attended. For those of you who have attended PC Expo, you know that it occupies most of the main show floor and the walkways between booths is absolutely packed, much like NYC streets. This was not the case at CeBIT. The floor was fairly quiet, and was about 25% smaller than last year's PC Expo. The keynotes were also sparsely attended (I attended the PalmSource one, which was filled to about 40% capacity, and the PeopleSoft one, which was perhaps 70% capacity). We toured the show floor in only about two hours, and this included spending the time to take pictures.


Javits' impressive-looking entrance area. Note that the registration lines are empty. Admittedly, this was late Wednesday afternoon, but the area was still very quiet!

Nevertheless, there were some golden nuggets at the conference. First, I had the fantastic opportunity to hook up and privately interview Mike Wehrs, Director of Technology and Standards in Microsoft's Mobility Group. As such, he's very involved in the high-level aspects of Pocket PC, Smartphone and related technologies and how they fit into the cellular and handheld industries. He is very knowledgeable and I was able to ask him about some of the hard questions: the availability of Smartphones in the US, Bluetooth in Pocket PC Phones and Smartphones, ActiveSync and more. Stay tuned for part three, where I discuss this interview.

Second, I was able to attend David Nagel's PalmSource keynote on Wednesday evening. This will be the basis for part four of the series, where I analyze what he said in detail, but it's very clear now that Palm has set its sights on the enterprise market and is working aggressively to play catch-up. I'll leave most of my insights for later, but in short, the keynote was very well-organized and David and his partners touched upon a number of important issues, including wireless data access, device management, enterprise application integration and more. (The one exception was the Sony part -- they focused entirely on multimedia, which has its niche applications, but ignored the rest of the issues raised in the keynote.) It will be interesting to see how far Palm can carry its vision; they have a long way to go, but they finally realize it.

But first, the gadgets! Part two of my series will be a photo tour of the show floor. While the show floor was small, as I previously mentioned, my colleague Suhit Gupta and I were still able to take over 150 pictures of various technologies. I'm still sorting through the pile to pick out the gems. In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures to whet your appetite.


Part of Sprint's current and upcoming phone lineup; from left-to-right, the Samsung SPH-i330 PalmOS smartphone, the Samsung A500, Toshiba 2032SP, the Samsung N400, the upcoming Samsung SPH-i500 PalmOS smartphone, the Treo 300, the upcoming Hitachi G1000 Pocket PC Phone Edition, the Hitachi P300, the LG 5350 and above the Sanyo SCP-5300, the Sprint camera and various Aircards.


The upcoming Handspring Treo 600. I'm still not quite sure how easy those buttons will be to press; they didn't have a unit outside for us to play with.


The Activu dual-display screen. I'll take one for my living room, please. :lol:

[Trokair]

It looks very interesting, Janak. I've always wanted to attend one of these types of things, but never really had the time or the money to do so. ^_^ Looking forward to the next two parts!

-Kyle

[clinte]

You are doing a great job janak. Keep it up.

Am very curious about the interview with Mike Wehrs and the info on Nagel.

Did you know that Microsoft has add 4 new Bluetooth Profiles to there CE. NET 4.2 OS. The headset profile seems vague!?
http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/Emb...whyupgrade.asp

[snowlion]

whatever you do...don't eat hotdogs from those vendors outside the center.

i used to work close to the area...and also close to where these carts were stored overnight. they're usually not individual owners but rent from a big company....i've seen how they "store" the buns and dogs...

[gorkon280]

That Activu is very cool. Almost reminds me of that vaporware LCD or plasma (not sure which) monitor specifically for 3d gaming. It set on a pedestal and looked like a C from above. It basically wraped around your chair almost so you could use peripheral vision for landing a plane in FS 2003.

[Bearjaw]

Cool article! I have always wondered what one of these expos was like. I live just above springfield mass. and while its sort of close to New York(if you call a 4 hour drive close :bawl: ) Its still not close to where any of these things are held. So I salute you for this article. Now onto the show. Was the treo 600 as great as it looks. It looks like they finally got the medling of phone and pda right. I'd love to see pocket PC's follow the same format. I never have been a big integration fan(beside the Wi-Fi in all PPC's) But that form factor looks awesome. What does everyone else think. Is integration of phone and PPC unavoidable?

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by Trokair

It looks very interesting, Janak. I've always wanted to attend one of these types of things, but never really had the time or the money to do so. ^_^

You do realize that, if you work in IT or somesuch, the exhibition floor is usually free if you preregister at least 3-4 weeks in advance? PC Expo is coming in September... check out their site and see if you can get registration.

As for the remaining parts, expect to see them later this week and early next week. I was going to get all this done earlier, but Windows Mobile 2003 for Pocket PC got in the way.

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

Originally Posted by Bearjaw

Was the treo 600 as great as it looks. It looks like they finally got the medling of phone and pda right. I'd love to see pocket PC's follow the same format.

It's one sexy-looking unit, no doubt. But as to the usability -- I'm not sure yet. The keyboard looks awfully small, and the screen is quite small too. I spoke to a couple of PalmSource folks, and they said Handspring did user testing and the size worked out, but I'm not yet convinced it'll work for everyone. Personally, I think it'll be more competition for Smartphone than Pocket PCs as a whole, but we'll see.

--janak

[mangochutneyman]

Personally, I think it'll be more competition for Smartphone than Pocket PCs as a whole, but we'll see.

I think you're exactly correct here. The treo600 should compared more to the SPV and Symbian phones like SE P800 and Nokia 3650.

Also Janek, do you have any side by side comparison pics of the G1000, Toshiba 2032SP, Treo 600 etc? I would be very interested to see these if possible...thanks

[Elad Yakobowicz]

Ahh yes, got to love the Javits Center. Pity I didn't find out about the event in time, I've wanted to attend one of these for years now (more specifically PC Expo) but this could have been equally as cool I'm sure. Looking forward to the rest of the article series!

And oooh that dual-display monitor setup... pclove: