Macworld: The joint was jumpin'

[Very Interesting. MacBookAir was this year's show stopper.
Photo by Shel]

The last tme I walked a MacWorld Show floor was the year they introduced the iMac that looked like a desklamp.  The crowds were relatively sparse, dominated by middle aged men with graying pony tails. Steve Jobs had returned relatively recently and there was a buzz of hope that this new Mac in that festering anti-Microsoft Era just might pave the way to a revitalized Mac.

Even the most wide-eyed optimists of that day had no idea just what a half-decade could deliver. This was a jammed, crammed, vibrant MacWorld. Still consumer dominated, with nary a necktie on the exhibit floor, the aisles of tqo gargantuan halls were filled, the booths crammed, the dais exhibitors speaking to filled seats.

The joint was jumping. Apple has gone from the cool alternative for a Redmond-haters to the coolest thing in consumer electronics. Still not a place that  my two-hour stroll could discern as an enterprise hang, it was filled with all others sorts of business people from probably all continents not covered with snow.

That first desklamp iMac turned out to be a hit, even if it's stage setting wifi enabling Airport seemed silly for a non-portable desktop unit, it began a string of design genius hits that just keep getting better. Jobs in his Keynote named about a halff dozen, but one stood out.

The new 3 lb, 10-hour, .8 inch ultra portable MacBook Air is quite simple the most beautiful personal computer ever made. It is the apple of every road warrior's eye and I have little doubt that it will be a most significant hit, even with a $1799 price tag on it; even with no dock; even with some questions of compatibility with non-Apple peripherals.

This is a must-have for the intensive traveller. And that is important for the world of computers for the rest of people. Mac, I have been told by someone who knows, is growing more significantly than people realize in new buys inside the enterprise.  Road warriors are very often Enterprise people who influence the pourchase and desires of others.

I think this new Mac is  very important next step on what has been a relentless march of genius.  nd it really did start with that desklamp iMac, which looks these days pretty silly and clunky compared with the Macs of today.

[Seats filled. Audience engaged. No neckties.Macworld shows a flourishing
environment. Photo by Shel]