No Apple at Macworld Any More? Bad for Fans, Good for Apple

Earlier today Apple announced its decision that January’s Macworld Expo in San Francisco will be the last one for Apple and that even this participation will be limited as it will not feature the traditional keynote by Steve Jobs. And while Apple is well known to make bloggers keep talking about whatever it is that the Cupertino company wants to announce, today’s discussion on Techmeme seems to be particularly animated (its length resembling situations when Apple announced iPhone or new Macbooks) with bloggers outraged or curious about the decision.

The official explanation is pretty logical: Apple simply does not need third-party tradeshows (Macworld is produced by IDG) to reach potential customers now that the corporation is perfectly able to talk to its customers (existing and potential) directly. Of course it is understandable that there are so many ways to reach your customers without wasting money on tradeshows if you are Apple and polishing the operations of your magnificent buzz machine and working with bloggers carefully to make sure everything you do will gain a lot of exposure in the blogosphere and in the traditional media as well.

I think these enormous marketing efforts have ensured the success that Apple already enjoys in reaching customers directly: 3.5 million people visiting a total of 250 Apple retail stores worldwide every week and huge audience of the Apple online properties. So of course when you can reach people directly like this you will hardly want to waste money on exhibiting at a tradeshow where you will hardly gain anything but will mainly serve the purpose of being a symbol of the show and an additional attraction for organizers to make people pay for their tickets.

But still it is kind of difficult to understand how Macworld Expo can exist without Apple, the company behind everything that is “Mac” – even though there are plenty of companies at the exhibition halls that will demonstrate everything that is “for Macs” as well. In fact, Apple has already cut its participation in a number of Apple-centered events: Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.

Besides, Apple handles its own events pretty well, attracting enough attention to whatever the company introduces – without having to generate revenue for the conference organizers. But the major difference is that Apple’s own events are usually reserved for press and developers only while general public could only be admitted to events like Macworld to be the first to see new products by Apple like iPhone or Macbook Air (both were introduced at Macworld events).

It is understandable that many companies will want to scale back on big (and usually expensive) conferences and exhibitions in the current economic situation. But Apple does not quote any financial problems as a reason for this particular decision (and we should not probably expect the hidden reasons to be in this domain), focusing on its ability to work with customers directly instead. At the same time there are still various successful companies that have already reached significant successes but still don’t neglect trade shows. For example, wherever you go to a tech conference, you will most certainly see Nokia and Microsoft with huge and good-looking booths demonstrating their latest achievements. Moreover, without these largest companies exhibiting many of the conferences would probably have been total disasters as no smaller companies are usually able to afford more than very basic booths and sponsorship packages. So it is not like you necessarily have to cancel your participation in the trade shows as soon as you build a loyal audience.

So it is no wonder that this decision has resulted in multiple rumors emerging with bloggers trying to find hidden reasons. The rumors are mainly focused on Steve Jobs health – quite predictably given how afraid people are his illness may damage their favorite company in addition to its CEO personally. But I have a feeling that Apple actually tells the truth as the company decided to only pursuit its own benefits – and generating revenue for another company is probably not a good idea when you can inspire the same buzz yourself at your own events or simply using efforts of multiple bloggers who are usually more than happy to discuss any news about Apple – no matter how small it may be.