Computex gets INQUIRER top trade show award

These highly treasured awards are accolades for the different categories the judges have decided on.

The categories in all the INQ awards are Gold, Silver, Bronze and Plastic, and here are the first winners.

The nominations for Trade Show Awards were CTO 2002, the Gartner System Integrator Conference in Monaco, Computex 2002 in Taipei, Cebit 2002, and Comdex Fall.

Computex 2002, held in Taipei, wins the gold award for trade show of the year. Since we first visited this show 13 years ago, every year has only got better. The INQUIRER missed the famous "balloons" incident of 2001, but that was more than made up this year when all AMD's chipset partners - bar none - said the Hammer wouldn't be launched until the end of March 2003, despite, or perhaps in spite, of what AMD executives said. It was also enlivened by flowers from the Pabster at almost every stand we visited. We particularly appreciated CETRA, which organises this show, for supplying more PCs so we could file our stories online almost immediately, and also the Taiwan City Council, which has lengthened the time the little green man walks before you're run over by multitudes of autos and scooters. The World Cup motif also gets our support. May this show continue for another 13 years.

CeBIT 2002, an annual must-go show in Hannover, Germany, receives a silver award for its consistency in the face of adversity. The press bar remained open, although the press was far less of a press than we'd ever seen it before. The Hannover authorities also made our little journey every day from Lubeck well worth the trip. Congratulations CeBIT! May 2003 be even better. Some vendors wandered around aimlessly, but that didn't matter, because it was cosy inside. We were a little upset that the famous Munchenhaller seems to be closing forever, but appreciated the great big plastic lion roaring its best as everyone sang the famous Alice song. It was much easier to get from Point A to Point B in CeBIT 2002 -- all thanks to the organisers for their efforts.

Comdex 2002 Fall in Las Vegas, home of Eva Glass, richly deserves this bronze award. Although it seems to be far less persistent these days than either CeBIT or Computex, the fact they hold one at all deserves, we feel, one of our top awards. It is an institution and long may it continue.

We took time out in February to visit the Computer Trade Only show in Birmingham. The only journalist there was from the INQUIRER and we believe we met one PR person too. Well done, Computer Trade Only show! This award is richly deserved. We wouldn't have been there ourselves this year, but the train stopped at Birmingham International because there was no diesel or something for the choo-choo, so we thought we'd drop on by for an idle two or three hours. µ

* WATCH OUT FOR THE other awards the INQUIRER will bestow. Including Salesperson of the Year, Journalist of the Year, Vendor of the Year, Motherboard Company of the Year, Software Firm of 2002, and many others...