Expocomm 2004 "down there" edition

ORGANISED BY E. J. Krause & Reed Exhibitions and with the incumbent telcos Telecom Argentina and Telefonica as "diamond sponsors", the 2004 edition of Expocomm Argentina -the trade show dedicated to the IT market and communications sector- came to an end after only four days on Friday the 24th in Buenos Aires. Yes, you know, that place down under where tango was born and soccer fans abound.

Held at the La Rural convention center, the exhibition attracts a diverse crowd, as you can see on the official "attendee demographics" web page. So, to justify my title of INQ's official South America correspondent, I grabbed my Clie NX80V PDA/camera, and headed to the show.

Perhaps to remind everyone that the influential -but never very popular- Argentine Rural Society (large landowners and cattle breeders' association) owns the place, everyone had to pass in front of these little reminders on the way to the technology expo floor:

Passing through what looked like an empty wharehouse, the suits descend upon the exhibition floor:

Finally on the exhibition floor:

It was quite crowded, but not to the point of get-me-out-of-here desperation ;). In fact in most of the booths you were able to have a nice chat with the different representatives. Despite the current tourism boom, I have to admit that I didn't hear many foreign voices.

Can I use that as a barbecue grill?

Being heavily oriented towards the telecom world, there were dozens of providers of expensive telecom gear for carriers, antennas of all kinds, cellular, WI-FI, WLL amplifiers, and associated gear. You won't be seeing much of that on my reports, as my focus will be the "computer geek eye". :)

So, did you imagine we had not only computers but also IT shows down here?. I bet you did. Keep reading for more.
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