This is where Ian Burley, DPNow's editor and founder, shares his unique thoughts and impressions on subjects that he hopes will be of interest to others on the subjects of digital photography and other related or loosely related topics! You can follow DPNow Editor's blog on Facebook and Twitter, too.
Inaugural PMA and CES tie-up this week
Posted 09-01-12 at 05:40 PM by Ian
It's time for the annual winter shindig in Las Vegas that is CES - the Consumer Electronics Show. It's huge, it's glitzy and it's slightly different this year because the once proudly independent annual international photography industry showcase, PMA (Photo Marketing Association), is now part of CES.
Last year I blogged that PMA was to survive CES by becoming part of CES. In all honesty I'm not even sure PMA is guaranteed survival with this arrangement, but PMA@CES is here and we'll be monitoring how the revised event goes.
But a quick scan of the PMA exhibitors lists reveals that only one camera manufacturer (Ricoh/Pentax) of anywhere near premier league status is exhibiting at the PMA section of CES, which is located in the Venetian hotel, away from the main CES thoroughfares at the Las Vegas Convention Center. All the other camera manufacturers are at CES, not PMA.
While CES has grown into a massive event, there are signs that it, too, must look over its shoulder. In the 1980s and 1990s the big IT show in Vegas was Comdex. It was as big as CES is now and dwarfed CES as it was back then. But the Comdex franchise stumbled after the millennium and collapsed after its final hurrah in 2003. The more nervously disposed managers at CES might remember the downfall of COmdex and wonder if history is repeating itself again. Apple doesn't exhibit at CES and Microsoft has announced that this year's CES will be its last. Without two of the biggest names in IT, some naysayers are bound to be sounding the end of CES.
Maybe that's a little premature, but history repeating itself is, kind of familiar.
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