Adobe, Macromedia to skip Macworld - Tech News

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Adobe, Macromedia to skip Macworld

By Ian Fried
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
June 21, 2002, 8:45 AM PT

The twice-yearly Macworld Expo may be the biggest event in the Macintosh world, but two key developers are taking a pass on next month's show in New York.

Macromedia and Adobe Systems will be absent from the show floor. The two large Mac developers have missed other recent shows, but not at the same time. Macromedia skipped the San Francisco Macworld show in January; Adobe was in San Francisco but passed up going to last year's New York event, which Macromedia attended.

Beth Wickenhiser, a spokeswoman for Macworld producer IDG World Expo, confirmed Friday that "it's true they won't be attending this year. But there will be a lot of other great developers at the show."

Of course, the centerpiece of the show--Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs' keynote speech on July 17--remains. And a number of big names will be joining Apple on the show floor, including Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Corel and Canon.

A Macromedia representative stressed that the company is fully committed to the Mac market, noting that Macromedia has recently released a number of titles for Mac OS X.

"Macromedia as a company has found seminars and other methods of communicating with our customers are sometimes more effective than trade shows," the representative said.

Adobe plans to continue exhibiting at the San Francisco event, which takes place each January.

"Like many companies in today's economy, we've refocused our trade show resources on a few select shows that will give us the most significant return on investment," Adobe Vice President Kevin Burr said in a statement provided to CNET News.com. "The West Coast show has traditionally been more successful for us, since we're able to reach more Adobe Macintosh customers."

Apple was unavailable for comment.

Macworld, like other trade shows, is feeling the pinch of tight corporate purse strings.

"The show floor will be smaller," said Wickenhiser, who added, "We still have hundreds of exhibitors."

In many cases, though, attendees are opting for smaller booths.

Wickenhiser said show organizers expect attendance to be close to the 64,000 mark of last year's New York show.