Apple announced today that the MacWorld Expo 2009 is the last show the company is exhibiting.
Additionally Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year’s Macworld Conference & Expo, and it will be Apple’s last keynote at the show. So cancel your trip to MacWorld right now, there will be no Steve Jobs show.
Apple cites as reasons for the move that trade-shows are not important for the company anymore to reach customers. Apple says that 3.5 million people visit an Apple Store each week and the Apple site reaches more than a hundred million customers.
I am saying this all along that Trade-shows are a dying species. Since you can these days have high quality video webcasts companies can pull off a show that cost way less than a trade show participation. To continue to reach customers and partners on a personal level, companies are better off arranging special events. The no Steve Jobs keynote address will be held at Moscone West on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. Macworld will be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center January 5-9, 2009.
Via this Apple announcement.