I’m still recovering from CES. I need to post my photos and pass along my comments on what I saw, but I won’t get to this until the end of the day. I’ve been jumping between answering emails and posting here all morning and I need to get some real work done 🙂
But first…
The Tablet PC Get Together at CES was a great opportunity for members of the Tablet PC community to get to know each other and share their interest in the Tablet PC.
I had a great time eating and talking with Ken Dulaney from Gartner and Dinesh from XThink. Ken had some great stories about his Grid Computer days. Later I worked my way over to the other side of the very long table and listened in to a conversation between Peter, Chris Coulter and Frank Gocinksi (ISV Evangelism). They were really getting into it and I couldn’t help but notice all the laughter from the Electrovaya table so I squeezed into their table for a bit. Nice, nice people. After a few minutes a hopped over to the next table which had a Tatung contingent. I practiced the five Mandarin words I know and shared my enthusiasm for the Tablet PC. They invited us over to their private room to see their Tablet PCs which I was really looking forward to. By the end of the evening Lora and I were in deep discussions with Tablet PC members of the OEM group and before we knew it it was getting late and time to go. I doubt I talked with half the people. I know there were several Microsoft team members I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself to and I met only one of the Motion representatives. Everyone had such intereresting stories to tell. It was a blast.
I’m not sure of the exact number who were there, but I’ve heard from Lora this morning that she’s been getting emails that several people were turned away because the Paris staff told them the room was full. Drats. So far we know of two OEM CEOs that were turned away. Chris Coulter had done an amazing job getting yeses from some big name media people too that didn’t show up. Now I wonder if this is why they weren’t there. There even had been rumors that Bill Mitchell (VP of the Tablet PC division) was going to be there, although a little late. I wonder if he’d tried too, but couldn’t get in either. I’m surprised the staff didn’t do whatever they could to help us out. I wish I’d known. I would have swapped my place for any of them.