As I was prepping my thoughts for this latest entry, I was looking for an appropriate picture to place along with the commentary. This act made me also read over some of the past entries I made for other CTIA shows. It's interesting to see some of the titles I had for other post CTIA ruminations. I think the most relevant and appropriate one was "I survived CTIA." Ya, that seems to fit the bill again this year.
Regardless, it's interesting to see how things have changed over the last few shows. Some themes haven't (e.g., the Fall show seems to get smaller every year), while others have considerably.
Let's start with what has changed the most. In years past, there were major themes across the show like mobile marketing, or mobile music. This year? Nada. Zilch. Niente. The two biggest deals (in terms of visibility) were the fact that Microsoft launched Windows Mobile 6.5 and Motorola came out (again) with its Android CLIQ - scratch that, it's not just about Motorola, but the fact that several companies showed off Android devices.
While some people will argue that WAS the theme of the event, I'll argue against that notion. A trade show like CTIA is by default about product annoucements. The other "pavillions" were lacking in my opinion. M2M, Marketing and even the "Business" area were all pretty light in my opinion. What was equally surprising to me was the noticeable absence of RIM and HTC. Also, while Verizon had a booth, I don't recall seeing AT&T there. What does that say about the show? It says, it's an event without a cause. While I do believe that CTIA can and should have two shows a year, there needs to be a genuine theme that distinguishes the two. It wasn't there this year, and I wonder what if any impact this might have on the Spring 2010 event.
Now that all said, I didn't spend THAT much time on the show floor. I was busy in back to back meetings with companies not only in enterprise mobility, but also in marketing, retail and banking. While the turnout at the show may have been light overall, my sense is (including what I heard from others) that the "real" show was off the show floor - meaning the face to face meetings. Companies seemed to be excited about a real upturn in the market in the coming months and are feverishly developing new solutions, partnerships and deals to get ready for the proverbial "Turn 4."
That brings me hope as we'll see even further growth in the space of enterprise mobility. Maybe at some point, we'll have our own CTIA show.
