Apple is ditching MacWorld to instead exhibit at CES next year instead, according to one source.
The source, citing “friends who work at Apple,” insisted the company is ditching MacWorld because it will “go large” at CES, which typically runs concurrently with MacWorld in early January.
The International Consumer Electronics Show, or CES, is the big annual gathering ot the consumer electronics industry. Held in Las Vegas over several days, it attracts more than 2,700 companies from all over the world, including technology giants like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.
Apple has never had a presence at the show, exhibiting at MacWorld instead. In 2007, Steve Jobs managed to eclipse CES by unveiling the iPhone at MacWorld, but typically the technology press prefers CES, which has more companies and therefore more news.
If Apple were to be a presence at CES — with Steve Jobs possibly giving a keynote speech — it would no longer have to compete with CES for press attention.
In addition, Apple is now more of a consumer electronics company now than a computer company, making CES a much better fit than MacWorld, the source said.
The source insisted his information was solid, not just speculation.
“It’s a done deal,” he said.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
