For one week each January, Las Vegas becomes the epicenter of the tech world. Tens of thousands of people descend on Sin City for the Consumer Electronics Show, where there are more gadgets than you could ever fondle, more announcements than you could ever hear and more schmoozing than you could ever stand.
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Read More Features From CESIt's big. Too big, some would say, which is a big reason why a growing number of companies and industry insiders are skipping the show. Microsoft has bailed, Motorola will have only the smallest presence and Amazon, Google and Apple have never even been there.
"Other than the traditional home entertainment guys, the big tech vendors have kind of pulled out," said Gartner analyst Van Baker. “I don’t even go anymore. I don’t see any reason to. Any significant announcements are either done before or after CES."
The Consumer Electronics Association expects more than 150,000 people to attend the show, which begins Tuesday. Some 3,000 companies will fill more than 1.9 million square feet of exhibit space. Then there's all the action behind the scenes, the countless numbers of meetings, roundtables and mini-expos in hotel suites and banquet rooms throughout the city. It's too much for journalists and analysts to take in, and it's too easy for companies to see their message lost amid the noise.
There also aren't many surprises. CES can at times feel like your annual physical: something you're compelled to do, even if it rarely reveals anything you didn't already know. This year we'll be seeing a whole lot more 4K TVs and projectors, laplets and other hybrid Windows 8 machines and gizmos to track your health and fitness.
None of this means CES is losing its relevance, however. Although the industry is changing, CES remains the place to be. It is where the contacts are made, the deals brokered and the future glimpsed.
"A single word might be used to sum up the reason for showcasing a technology at CES: exposure," said Mark Medawar, director of U.S. sales at Mobileye, which develops optical technology for the automotive industry. "There are so many great technologies in the market today and I believe having them all in one general area generates a level of enthusiasm that is contagious."
It's been that way since 1976, when CES broke away from a music merchants show focused exclusively on home entertainment. It has since then hosted the introduction of industry-revolutionizing products like the VCR, the camcorder, NES, and HDTV. In 2003, COMDEX (the Computer Dealers' Exhibition) folded and was largely incorporated by CES. It was a seminal moment that boosted the show's profile and product diversity.
We're in the midst of another shift. CES is of less importance to traditional electronics companies -- particularly those in the PC space, like HP and Microsoft, said Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps. After 15 years, Microsoft has bailed out of CES, just one year after CEO Steve Balmer delivered the keynote. And Apple has never been there. Both have, like Samsung, Nokia and others, opted instead to unveil products at carefully scripted events that more closely follow their internal development cycles. This ensures their announcements aren't crowded by hundreds of other announcements each day.
But the departure of old-school companies like Microsoft makes room for emerging companies, particularly those in emerging CES categories like automotive, fitness, and healthcare.
"As the sports & fitness tech and digital health category is growing, this has become an important part of the show," said Gwen Smith, marketing manager at Bodymedia. "Announcing at this time gives us the advantage to showcase our product to both media and partners during the excitement of CES."
The automotive industry is especially enamored with CES as car companies increasingly focus on connectivity and infotainment. Eight of the 10 largest automakers will be at the show this year.
Future tech is a growing facet of CES. What used to be a show highlighting the stuff you'd see in Best Buy six months from now has become a place to glimpse the future and how it will shape our lives.
"Unlike the days when it was largely a gadget show, CES now also represents the convergence of technology, entertainment and policy, of Hollywood and Silicon Valley," said John Taylor, LG Electronics USA vice president.
To underscore that point, CEA president Gary Shapiro boasted of the entertainment luminaries who will attend the show, including Will.I.Am and, yes, Snooki. "We are an important show because we have Snooki," he half-joked.
LG has a 20,000-square-foot exhibit planned for the show, just one of the elaborate -- and, often, overwhelming -- displays that fill three buildings just off the Strip. But more and more of the most important business happens behind the scenes as tech companies meet in hotel suites and conference rooms to launch trial balloons, show off prototypes they don't want competitors to see and negotiate deals.
"Unlike years before, we’ve strategically decided to move meetings to the Venetian to get away from the "noise" of CES," said Denise Keddy, D-Link senior marketing communications manager. "It allows us to talk with customers and press in a quieter setting and give them our full attention when discussing products we’ve announced at the show."
It's that kind of face-to-face meetings that make the show so important to tech companies, and the analysts and journalists who follow them. It provides an opportunity for hands-on experience with the latest gadgets, offers a sweeping view of the industry and brings everyone together for five days of glad-handling and networking.
"People can get together without having to fly around the world and meet each other," said Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association. "What they can do in ten months they can do in four days at the show."
Even if those four days feel like 10 months.
