IT Fair

Attended the IT fair that just passed at Suntec last weekend. This is the first time i really took time to visit one without my wife or friend. Result of this is outing with myself has proven hilarious and eye opening.

The IT fair never fails to amaze me on how disgustingly irresponsible Singaporean/PRs are when they attend this fair be it being the vendor or the purchaser. It spells the shortest life span of any brochures print in this world. The electronic big names employs part-time job thirsty undergrads to give away brochures to consumers like us who dumps it immediately into the paper boxes just 3 steps away.

Information overload. How do you choose a laptop with 20 brochures and 10,000 people rubbing shoulders plus half-educated ah bengs shouting out discounted prices of their products across the exhibition halls ?

What is the best response when any of the eager to serve kid asks you " Hi looking for laptops ? " most will keep quiet and walked on. Polite ones will say " looking around only "
So this is a mass orgy to celebrate technogy. Come together to feel the opulence of retailer and consumer. The taxi queue is formed by a line of trolleys that came free with the printer you buy. Amazing. Everyone has something to buy. Everything comes with free giftssss. And free gifts always comes with its usual price if bought separately to show u how much you have gained.
Only Singapore has the quality in its consumers to stage such a distorted retail extravaganza every 3 months.

IT Fair has spread its roots into unseen territories. We are seeing more laptop sales than desktop. This is fair. Probably the only logical thing that happened for this IT Fair. because at the most conspicous entrance of the 6th floor exibition hall you will find yourself slapped with bright sale tags for FRIDGE and WASHING MACHINES. I am not sure whether they are to freeze your overheated Intel Chips or to WASh off the virus in your harddisc. But they are there. Hiding at one corner, but not wasting time at all is SINGAPORE POOLS trying to get people to set up phone betting accounts at the IT fair. I will spare the credit card companies because they are suppose to be everywhere. But most absurdly Nutrisoy trying to give out samples and selling SOYA BEAN MILK at the IT fair. This means this is not an IT fair afterall. Just a big scale Pasar Malam.

I did my national day parade thru 4th and 6th floor, stopped momentarily to speak to the standing soldiers of the IT Fair asking seemingly in depth questions to make them feel important. It was a friday early afternoon so the crowd was just nice for the oxygen percentile to remain healthy.

A few products did interest me though.

Trend spotter number 1 - more are taking MP3 players seriously. So we have good people from Samsung and Sony selling Mp3 players at cheap affordable price ( just because it is time to clear old stock to make way for the new stock ). I remember the good days 10 years back when i first got my FIRST MP3 player ( the brand was Wewa, Taiwan brand ) it was state of the art 128 MEGABYTE mp3 player with NO expandable memory. I can store 30 songs in it , 32 if i am lucky. Then i knew MP3 players will surely be the next big thing. The very fact that a lipstick size gadget can bring music to the ears with almost no pocket space needed is just bliss. Think walkman and CD player. Think jeans pocket. Not very sexy without an MP3 player.
Now we have 4 gig player with expandable memory wih video play back voice recording plus radio and a clock. Enuff to steal a good portion of any companies trade secrets with your MP3 player.

The next IT fair will come before i forget about this episode. Lets see whether my dream MP3 player will be at half the cost or perhaps appear as a free gift with the next washing machine i buy .