Sunday, September 18, 2005

Once-popular trade show falls victim to Apple's decision to end its participation.

The annual Boston Macworld trade show, which once attracted 60,000 users of Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh computers, is shutting down, the victim of Apple's 2004 decision to end its participation in the show.

Last July's Macworld here attracted just 8,000 visitors, compared to the 36,000 who attended the annual West Coast Macworld show in San Francisco in January. Apple frequently unveils products at the West Coast show and the annual keynote speech by chief executive Steve Jobs there is one of the most closely watched events in the computer industry.

Mike Sponseller, spokesman for IDG World Expo, the Framingham company that runs the Macworld shows, said that computer product sellers have said they prefer to attend the San Francisco show. ''We've been doing a lot of research, talking to vendors, and basically the industry prefers to do just one event every year," said Sponseller. ''The decision on how we serve the Mac community isn't one we treat lightly. So we obviously talked to Apple. But this was our decision."