Sunday, January 14, 2007

Comparing CES - Las Vegas and GITEX - Dubai

Las Vegas in Nevada; USA was all abuzz with CES (Consumer Electronics Show) the last few days. CES is the world’s # 1 consumer electronics show. It attracts about 150,000 people for the show. Las Vegas is transformed during this period. The town was awash with chatter of all new technologies about to hit the market.

Although I have not been to Vegas and America; I was just trying to draw parallels between Las VegasCES and Dubai’s GITEX (Gulf Information Technology Exhibition). The GITEX is among the world’s top 3 exhibitions for information technology related products and technologies. GITEX has 1,200 exhibitors and more than 2200 companies from 61 countries. It had around 127,000 trade visitors.

Both Dubai & Las Vegas are modern cities rising out of desert sand. Both have spectacular hotels and great architecture. Both are futuristic. Dubai has GITEX, Cityscape, and Arabian Travel Market (ATM). Vegas has CES, AHEM and the Adult Entertainment Expo. Both cities have choking traffic during such shows. During the last GITEX you could not find a parking place. The hotels were full and there are long queues for taxis.

Honestly, Las Vegas must have an advantage in terms of infrastructure with a monorail of its own. Dubai has also started its multi billion construction it’s own metro and is it is expected to be operational by mid 2009. Dubai certainly has plans to get bigger and better. Will it out pace Vegas' CES in the next few years? I doubt if it will in the near future; simply because America is the land of IT development. Moreover CES has completed it's 40th anniversary; so CES has to be bigger and better than GITEX. Dubai is just a great exhibition centre and a good organizer of such shows. The fact is newest of tech offerings first hit America and then the world. For example Apples to-be-launched iphone was showcased in CES. Advantage CES and Vegas!

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