Over 220,000 techies descended on Las Vegas last week for the annual Comdex show.
To some extent, they discovered that some things never change: Gadgets get smaller, faster, cheaper and thinner. Bill Gates is still a god. The packed conference floors still offer more chaos that insight.
Even though this is the biggest U.S. trade show in the high-tech sector, L.A.’s growing industry wasn’t well represented; only about 20 of the 2,300 or so exhibiting companies were from Los Angeles.
“As a rule, Comdex hasn’t been a really big venue for L.A. companies,” said Bill Manassero, executive director of the Software Council of Southern California. “It tends to be more hardware than software, the big folks are overwhelming, and the smaller companies can get buried even after shelling out a lot of money for a booth.”
At least one local company felt that manning its booth was well worthwhile: South Pasadena-based InsurePoint, a designer of online software that helps technology companies manage their insurance coverage.
“There are a huge number of companies here, but only one in the insurance niche us,” said company co-founder Rob Davidson, interviewed from his booth at the show. “Because of that, we’ve got (venture capitalists), bankers and the press coming by to check us out. It’s been very good.”
But David Fournier, a vice president at Peerless Systems Corp. and an 18-year Comdex veteran, voiced a growing sentiment that the show has become so gargantuan that exhibiting there isn’t cost effective. The company, which makes embedded software for digital document products such as printers, instead rented a suite at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.
“Our market is relatively narrow, so scheduling meetings in advance with targeted clients and potential clients from around the world made sense for us,” Fournier said. “We let our young marketing guys run reconnaissance on the Comdex floor all day. Their feet should be able to handle it.”
…
We’ve lost a good one.
BigWords.com, a Santa Monica-based Internet start-up rapidly developing a golden reputation, closed its doors here last week to move up to San Francisco.
The reason: Silicon Valley venture capitalists.
“We’re mourning that we have to leave, but when we talked to venture sources here in Southern California and up in Northern California, we realized that we had to move in order to accomplish our goals,” said BigWords.com co-founder John Bates.
BigWords.com, which launched its site Aug. 31, sells and rents college textbooks to students at dramatically reduced prices by working directly with publishers. Although the company only advertised at eight California universities, word of mouth spread so rapidly through the college crowd that it was soon selling books at over 200 colleges across the nation. The company had its offices and a 100,000-square-foot fulfillment center in Santa Monica.
Venture capitalists told Bates that the growing company would more easily find the top talent it needs in San Francisco. However, BigWords.com will also face a hike in expenses to cover the Bay Area’s higher rents and higher cost of living for employees.
Bates, a member of the Los Angeles tech community since the ’80s, regrets leaving the industry he watched and helped grow.
“My parting words are that I shall return,” he said.
Sara Fisher can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].
