Some final thoughts

When you finally get through Bill Gates' labored humor in the keynote that ritualistically opens Comdex, and the fervid demonstrations of "concept products" that in all likelihood will never see a corporate purchase order, and the CEO keynotes that either are completely like the hucksterism of the CEO's employees in their showfloor booth or else take the high-road of blaming someone, anyone, else for their problems, and the Great Debates that sound like Great Squabbles, and the appearance of Someone Formerly Pretty Famous in this case the sort-of-rock-star Slash onstage with a chip manufacturer, and the babble created by every third person talking into thin air on their cellphone headsets, and the techno-music throbbing and pulsing from what seems to be most of the 1,100 exhibitors' booths, and the dreck of free ballpoint pens, t-shirts, bouncing light balls, and magnets, you're left with the inescapable conclusion that the computing stuff that works isn't very sexy and the stuff that's sexy doesn't work very well and no one knows what will happen next year.

In short, Comdex 2002 is the perfect metaphor for networking and technology in general at the dawn of the new millenium.

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