• Comdex Bites the Vegas Dust

MediaLive International Inc's diligent efforts "to determine how Comdex can best meet the future needs of the industry" have apparently led the company to the conclusion that it can best serve the industry by not taking place at all. Again. For the second year running.

San Francisco-based MediaLive said last year they were "postponing" the 2004 show, but not to worry - the show would be back in 2005.

In response to which SYS-CON's West Coast bureau chief wrote at the time:

"I doubt it. Rather, this sounds like the death knell for the one event that described the arc of the personal computer business, from its informal, hippiefied beginnings in Atlantic City in the 70s, through an exuberant decade running from the late 80s through the late 90s, to some alarming wretched excess in 2000, to its swift and apparently fatal downfall in the 21st century."

"I viewed Comdex as a talented child with bad parents," Strukhoff noted at the time. "Despite its parents' attempts to make the event as unpleasant as possible over the years, you know, the show was an absolute killer. It was there at the dawn of the industry, it grew with the industry, it defined the industry."

No longer however. Folks will have to find something else to do in Las Vegas this November, although - rather as they did last year -  MediaLive said Monday that it hopes to relaunch Comdex (at the Las Vegas Convention Center) in 2006.

MediaLive public relations manager Ben Stricker explained the 2005 decision to cancel as follows: "We just didn't have the number [of exhibitors] we thought was right, so unfortunately we decided to pull the plug rather than do something halfway."