Once a year the computer industry gathers in Las Vegas for the biggest exhibition of technology and trends in the world.
For computer companies, the fall COMDEX show is the place to see and be seen, to make a statement about who you are, what you do and how it fits in with everything else in computer technology.It's a week full of glitz, glamour, hype and high-stakes deal-making.
More than 210,000 people converged in Las Vegas this year for COMDEX Fall 96, which wrapped up Friday.
Given all of the above, I was surprised at Novell's low-key approach.
The Orem company took a smaller booth than in the past two years, one located in a back corner as far away from Microsoft as you could get and still be in the same hall. Iomega's booth, which was right beside Novell's, was bigger, bolder and much more snazzy.
None of the company's top public relations staff attended the event. And unlike 1994 and 1995, when then-CEO Robert J. Frankenberg made an appearance, no one from Novell gave a keynote speech.
It's a coveted and prestigious spot to fill.
The keynote speakers - this year they were Intel CEO Andrew S. Grove, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and Netscape CEO James Barksdale - represent the corporations and technologies at the forefront of the computer industry.
I felt rather dismayed, frankly, at Novell's participation, and I wasn't alone. I happened to run into a trio of former WordPerfect/Novell executives near the Novell booth. "Tough times" one said as he nodded toward the booth.
An inside source at the company told me Novell planned to pull out of COMDEX altogether this year. Management reconsidered after protests from several product divisions, according to the source, and agreed to scaled-back participation.
I heard, too, that Novell considers COMDEX too expensive and too oriented toward companies that make more consumer products like Zip drives, computers and software.
So Novell made a big splash at COMDEX while it owned WordPerfect and cut back once it shed the word-processing software.
Cost is a legitimate concern. I don't doubt that the mammoth pavilions set up by companies like Sony, Intel, Toshiba, Philips Electronics, Microsoft and IBM cost a lot of money.
The pavilions typically feature live shows, repeated every 10 to 20 minutes, where technology is explained in a swirl of lights, video, music, and action. It's hyperhype.
Iomega, for example, featured a trio of rap singers who acted out a song and dance routine about the need to store their "stuff."
It's true that Novell's NetWare software is a tough visual sell. What do you show? So Novell concentrated on displaying its GroupWise e-mail program and its Novell Directory Services.
"This is not Novell's show," several people told me. Novell saves it splash for Interop, a show it started.
Another Novell employee told me he considered the company's presence impressive, especially compared to "say, seven years ago."
Excuse me? That's the time span of a light year in the computer industry.
COMDEX is the computer show. It's a show about presence, impact and momentum. You either have it or you don't, and if you have it, you put it on display here and tell the computer world how cool you are.
One of the biggest topics at COMDEX Fall 96, based on comments by the keynote speakers and panel discussions dedicated to the topic, was intranets, internal networks that simulate the Internet and are used by corporations to share information and files.
Novell's business is linking computers together in networks, and is, despite recent troubles, the world leader in networking software. It has a product, IntranetWare, that let's businesses turn those networks into intranets.
In September it announced big plans to tell the world who it is and what it does, vowing to spend $20 million on an advertising campaign that would include establishing "the company as a major intranet market player."
If Novell wants to be a considered a fundamental player in the computer industry, it better act like one. The place to do that is COMDEX, even if it is expensive, overhyped and a big hassle.
For now, it's the computer industry's premiere showcase and the single most important place to make an impression on 210,000 key people.
It's hard to believe Novell can't make that connection.