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PC Expo? Searching for the trends behind the tedium

David Coursey AnchorDesk

Published: 21 Jun 2001 17:37 BST

Seriously, PC Expo is the show New York deserves: High in pretence and low in absolute value. This year's show is being wrapped in something called "Technology Exchange Week NY," a collection of several smaller conferences intended, perhaps, to bring some gravitas to the whole proceeding.

I will not be going to New York expecting very much news to be committed at the show. There's always some, but nosing around has yet to turn up anything astonishing. Computer trade shows have become the equivalent of the political conventions: If anything even surprising happens, it's because somebody wasn't doing their job.

Still, there are some trends and potential floor fights I will be watching:

DVD for the masses. There are several standards in a war that is shaping up to be a repeat of Betamax vs. VHS as the major consumer electronics players fight to turn rewriteable DVDs into VCR replacements. Prices, which are still quite high, should be in the $500 range early next year. It won't be long before every new PC will come with a recordable/rewriteable DVD. The fighting we'll see at PC Expo will be for the majority share of this very big pie.

New USB. The new USB 2.0 standard, which Microsoft has already dissed for Windows XP, will be putting on a brave face in its battle against FireWire to become the de facto standard for connecting high-speed devices, like video cameras, to personal computers and other machines.

Microsoft's new ventures. Microsoft will be pushing .Net, Office XP, and Windows XP to the New York audience. It may be fun to hang around the Microsoft pavilion and see what reaction the company receives.