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Apple Businesses

Apple Cancels Apple Expo 2001 237

Posted by Hemos from the changing-of-the-guard dept.
Ziploc writes: "Apple today announced the cancellation of Apple Expo 2001, which was scheduled to take place at Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles, from September 26th to 30th, 2001. See the press release here."
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Apple Cancels Apple Expo 2001 More

Apple Cancels Apple Expo 2001

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  • Steve Jobs keeps his promise (Score:3, Funny)

    by Lemur catta ( 459575 ) on Monday September 17, 2001 @12:37PM (#2309938) Homepage
    Steve Jobs promised "No new hardware at Expo Paris."
    Looks like he'll be keeping his promise!
  • Serious question here. I'm sorry, but what does this have anything to do with the Paris Expo? Security is their #1 concern? I'm not following the relevance.
    • A lot of people would have to fly from the US to France in order to get to the expo. Many are still in fear that another plane could be hijacked.

    • Apple is a US company (Score:5, Insightful)

      by artemis67 ( 93453 ) on Monday September 17, 2001 @01:12PM (#2310152)
      Terrorists might view Apple as a target because of that.

      The WTC didn't house many (if any) government offices, they were businesses.

      Personally, I also think it's a little too reactionary; they should just beef up security and go on with the show.

      There was a report on Marketplace [marketplace.org] on Friday about how many organizations within the US are cancelling their conventions because of the tragedy. The financial impact on the tourism industry of those cities is in the tens of millions of dollars. Think about it, if a convention has 30,000 people, and each person spends an average of $300 apiece on food, lodging, and such, then the loss of that one convention would mean the loss of $9 mil. in revenue.
      • They targeted WTC because it's the biggest and best known thing in the NY area, not because they're interested in the businesses. Why would they go for the Pentagon then? So any attack on europe would involve things like the eiffel tower in Paris or the Canary Wharf building in London, or some other phallus symbol, not some congress center with a bunch of mac lovers.
        • My point was that attacking symbols of America are just as valid, if not more so, to terrorists than attacking the US government or the US military directly. The WTC is a symbol of America. Apple is a symbol of America.

          Read their press release.
          • Ow come on, Disney, Coca Cola and MacDonalds are symbols of America (at least for non-americans), not Apple.

            By the way, exactly what of their press release do you think I missed? They don't say anything apart from "We're sorry to disappoint our users and developers, but their safety is our primary concern." Not very specific IMHO.
            • I said the press release, but was thinking of this quote from the internal email. Sorry.

              Also, today we are announcing the cancellation of Apple Expo 2001,
              which was scheduled to take place in Paris on September 26-30. We
              are very sorry to disappoint our customers and developers, but their
              safety must be our primary concern at this time. Apple is a very
              visible American company, and having a highly publicized event at
              this time would be irresponsible.

              Any questions?
    • Arrests have been made in Europe connected to the tragedy last week. The people arrested were planning new attacks, this time against targets in Europe, presumably to respond to forthcoming U.S. retalliation.
    • Serious question here. I'm sorry, but what does this have anything to do with the Paris Expo? Security is their #1 concern? I'm not following the relevance.

      Even if nobody was worried about attacks, there's a more basic practical matter: How will people get there? The airlines have a pretty big backlog of cancelled flights to deal with, and many people will probably be simply unable to make it.

    • If the US goes to war in a week flying across the Atlantic with 100's of employees and tons of cargo isn't a great idea. The risk of getting stuck in Europe, or half of the staff on Iceland and the rest i Amsterdam isn't that good. I dontät think Apples is really afraid of being a target, but they are concerned for their emploees.
  • So the new hardware isn't going to get a pretty parade in Paris?
    • So the new hardware isn't going to get a pretty parade in Paris?

      It wasn't going to. The only new hardware is a revised PowerBook G4, anyway. The real big thing is Mac OS 10.1, which will still be released on schedule.
  • It doesn't take me by surprise at all, and I don't really blame him. International flights out of the US are going to be a little scary for a while since the past Tuesdays affairs.

    Since there was no new hardware to be displayed, I don't really see this as much of a loss anyhow.

    Apple really needs to refocus and release tech. info on their older systems anyhow. I've been fighting for 2 years to get driver-level specs for a Powerbook 1400, and have yet to recieve anything but a runaround. MacOS X based on a BSD core is pretty cool, but Apple just like IBM-clones need a choice. BeOS comes close, but neither of these will run on my PB. I'd hate to think I'd wasted my money.

    BTW, a 1400 CAN be installed, but PCMCIA and floppy support, you can forget about.

    • Apple really needs to refocus and release tech. info on their older systems anyhow. I've been fighting for 2 years to get driver-level specs for a Powerbook 1400, and have yet to recieve anything but a runaround. MacOS X based on a BSD core is pretty cool, but Apple just like IBM-clones need a choice. BeOS comes close, but neither of these will run on my PB. I'd hate to think I'd wasted my money.


      Like Compaq, Toshiba, Dell and some other company's.
      I have a five year old Pentium 90 laptop with 8 mb and Windows XP won't install on it.
      Yeesh, get a live.
      The powerbook 1400 is almost 5 years old.
      And it isn't a PCI machine.
      • I agree with you about info on older systems. I'm sort of part of the dwindling community of Newton users (sort of because I used to use it quite a bit, but haven't touched it in the past few months), and low-level/never-released info on it could potentially REALLY be useful.

        Sean Luke has succesfuly ported the Waba JVM to the Newton, and low-level info on how to access the QuickDraw routines in the Newton ROM would really speed up the graphics. It's been done (Fractor, by Jason Rukman - you don't happen to know him?), but I can't find him.. Diddo for how to access the inker directly. And for info on how to make an OSX app to connect to the internal Dock application, or having the source to the NewtonScript byte-code compiler to make a replacement for NTK. Heck, the whole darn source code for the OS would be nice to look at, as I'd think that there's nothing of particularly "strategic value" in there (except for legacy SE QuickDraw routines, which are just that - legacy) On a more ambitious note, info on the hardware specs would be useful, especially with regards to replacing the display, or perhaps putting in a larger one.

        I ran across a post somewhere talking about the mounds and mounds of neat techology that Apple is just sitting on - QuickDraw GX, PowerTalk, KeyChain (off the table now, as it's in the OS), QuickDraw 3D (mostly supplanted by Quesa, but they still have some neat 3D-user-interface ideas for a mythical "Quickdraw 3D 2.0") and saying that Apple should release these gems as open-source. Put a moderatly restrictive licensing agreement on it saying that it can't be used in commercial software without written authorization from Apple (but that would invole $$$ on Apple's part to process requests, and you'd have to hire an army of lawyers to go after M$ if they tried to steal it.)

        Hmm, any posibility of forming a "Coalition to Free Apple Technology" ("Apple Toys want to be free..."), and the prayer of getting an ear on the board of directors?

        Miffed,
        Jim Witte
        jswitte@bloomington.in.us
    • It doesn't take me by surprise at all, and I don't really blame him. International flights out of the US are going to be a little scary for a while since the past Tuesdays affairs.

      You're a god damn yellow belly, there has never been strickter security around air travel and you chicken out!

  • Turns out there actually won't be any new products announced at Apple Expo this year.

  • Apple donates $1M and iBooks (Score:4, Informative)

    by LordNimon ( 85072 ) on Monday September 17, 2001 @12:44PM (#2309977)
    From MacCentral [macworld.com]: An Apple spokesperson confirmed for MacCentral today the company would donate $1 million dollars to the families of rescue workers that lost their lives in the attacks on two American cities last week.

    Apple will also be donating an iBook to each of these families with children.

  • I can see the logic (Score:2, Insightful)

    by HerrNewton ( 39310 )
    The expo starts on the 26th, 15 days after the attacks on the WTC. Apple has to move a lot of key personnel from Apple USA to Paris for the expo, personnel which are not always American citizens and some are quite likely "Arab looking".
  • I think it is still a bit too soon for a high energy SteveNote address right now. Good call.

  • Apple Expo 2001 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Migelikor1 ( 308578 ) on Monday September 17, 2001 @12:50PM (#2310020) Homepage
    On one hand, I sympathize with security concerns. This is a frightening time. On the other hand, is a congregation of nerds in Paris really much of a target? If the terrorists were going after intellectuals, they could have crashed into harvard or MIT (15 minutes into their flight from boston). If they want to damage the economy, damaging such a narrow (1 company+peripheral manufacturers) target wouldn't be nearly effective as hitting, for instance, the Stock exchange. It's like my school, where janitors were posted to make sure nobody bombed. Seems like a bit of paranoia to me, but on the other hand Apple didn't have much to say.
  • Apple was not happy with the press ranting about "no new products".
    The show would have been very weak, with another Jobs keynote just about the Mac OS X upgrade.
    Now the terror threat comes in very handy to cancel the fiasco show.
  • While I agree this was definately the right thing to do, it is a bummer that the events of last week are having longer term disruptions. The best thing, IMO, for the economy and stability is to go back to life as close to normal as possible, except with beefed up security.

    -Sean

  • Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh.


    Good work back in the 70's and 80's, but - what have you done for us lately? ;-)


    (Yes, that was a joke. When a dual G5 hit's the shelves with MacOS 10.1, I'm probably buying one!)

  • Hate to say it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by macdaddy ( 38372 ) on Monday September 17, 2001 @12:57PM (#2310075) Homepage Journal
    but as much as I'd like to see things continue like normal, it is probably wise to cancel events such as these for a short time. Air travel has suffered a horrific blow that has made many unsure of the safety of air travel. I hate to see the world shut down over this but some things should be put on hold for a little while.
    • Ironically, air travel is probably much safer today than it was two weeks ago because of increased security and the likelihood that terrorists will use a different means of attack next time.
    • If people cancel events like this, and if people change the way that they lead thier lives, then the terrorists win.

      We cannot allow these dirtbags to change our way of life, both as Americans and as citizens on the world stage. What happened on Tuesday was terrible, but it was (as far as existing data indicates) essentially unpreventable for we Americans living the lives that we do. Freedom comes with a price, and that price is danger and risk.
      We could change.
      we could close our borders to all Arabs.
      We could have full time tracking of all citizens.
      We could require people to be naked and locked up on all airline flights.

      I don't want to live in that country. I am willing to take the chance that there is some crazy asshole out there who wants to kill me. The reason I am willing to take that chance is because the rewards that I and that the rest of the country get are so very great.

      We cannot live in fear. If we do so, they win.

      • Just a guess, but you don't live in Texas, do you?

        Certainly not New York, because New Yorkers have been living without most of their personal freedoms since as long as I can remember.

        Safety first. Check Maslow's Hierarchy for further reference.

      • I agree. We shouldn't stop our lives. If we do, they win. That's the message that Congress and the House was trying to get across to us on the night of the incidents. Still I can see the point in postponing some of these events. What the terrorists did was very symbolic. It was an attack on America and our ideals. What better thing to attack than a major league baseball game. That's truly American. I can understand Apple's concerns with the Paris Expo. We simply can't be sure that France will take all possible security precautions to protect this event. France hasn't been attacked yet so their guard may be down or not as high as our's is right now. Plus all aircraft were grounded. If half the people can't get to their destination for their event (ball game, expo, conference, whatever) how can the people having the conference justify going through with it. Now that things a more under control I think we should all go out and have a huge public showing of support. Fireworks and singing sounds good.

  • Jobs's full letter to employees (Score:5, Informative)

    by HerrNewton ( 39310 ) <thoiigd3pn5p25001@nOspaM.sneakemail.com> on Monday September 17, 2001 @01:01PM (#2310095) Homepage
    Snagged from Macnn.com:

    Message from Steve

    From: Steve Jobs
    Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 07:12:15 -0700 (PDT)
    Subject: Message from Steve

    Team,

    Last week's devastating and tragic events have touched everyone at
    Apple. We are all grieving for the victims and their families.
    Thankfully, no Apple team members were among them. I know many of
    you have taken time to support various relief efforts, give blood,
    and support those around you. We all appreciate your extra efforts
    to do so.

    I want to let you know that Apple is donating one million dollars to
    the families of the firefighters, police and other emergency
    response personnel who lost their lives, through the American Red
    Cross Disaster Relief Fund. In addition, we will donate one iBook to
    each of these families with children this holiday season.

    Also, today we are announcing the cancellation of Apple Expo 2001,
    which was scheduled to take place in Paris on September 26-30. We
    are very sorry to disappoint our customers and developers, but their
    safety must be our primary concern at this time. Apple is a very
    visible American company, and having a highly publicized event at
    this time would be irresponsible.

    We are also taking extra precautions to insure our safety. Apple
    security will remain on heightened alert at all our facilities
    around the world for the foreseeable future. Please immediately
    report any suspicious events or personnel to security.

    It's going to take time for the world to return to "normal", and
    some things will never return to the way they were. The next few
    months may be rocky. Please take the time you need for your
    families, and please lean on one another. Together, we will all get
    through this.

    I want to commend everyone for their efforts throughout this
    difficult time. As always, I am very proud of this team.

    Steve
    • but their safety must be our primary concern at this time. Apple is a very visible American company, and having a highly publicized event at this time would be irresponsible.

      This is stupid, just what these terrorists want! It's not them bringing society on its knees, it's stupid and cowardly decisions like this one of Steve Jobs that is causing the damage.
      Security has never been tighter around air travel then right now.
      I'm disgusted!

  • Welcome to the NEW world, folks! Not only can I for see the absolutely diabolical events of the last week doing more of this sort of thing, that the realization that "we" are no longer safe in
    large crowds.

    I'm wondering if there's going to be a Superbowl, Academy Awards...

    :-(

    • Re:Sigh! (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by phillymjs ( 234426 )
      I'm sure there will be a Super Bowl, but the tight security at the one during the Gulf War will pale in comparison to what is forthcoming.

      I'm sure a good many people who will be planning the security have read The Sum of All Fears [amazon.com], and think of it as a worst-case scenario. This year we'll probably see fighter jets patrolling the skies for a good distance around the stadium, and possibly a military presence providing security on the ground. Metal detectors at every entrance. We'll probably see much the same at the Olympics in SLC.

      ~Philly
      • I have to say that security on the grounds isn't all that bad. I went to the World Cup in France in '98 which is obviously a decent target, and the security was quite tight (everyone was frisked at least once at every stadium, at the US-Iran game everyone was frisked twice).

        The thing is, the French were incredibly efficient about it. Every stadium had a several block area around it cordoned off where only ticket holders could go. To get into the stadium itself you were frisked. They had a set of male and female military types that exceeded the number of lines, so there was no backlogged to be frisked. The people doing the work were unbelievably efficient...I repeatedly saw the smallest Swiss Army knives (the keychain type) caught, and they were given to a booth where they could be retrieved after the game.

        It added no time to getting into the game, and it really added a sense of safety within the stadium. Certainly there were games that were tough to control (England/Tunisia, the game where a German hooligan attacked a police officer), but I thought the French did an incredible job.

        My point is, done well the extra security is no burden and allows you to enjoy the game. Further, I felt no lack of privacy or violation of basic rights at not being allowed to carry a knife into a game, particularly since I could just pick it up at the booth afterwards.
  • I forget what the event was, but numerous luminaries in the US film business (most memorably Sylvester Stallone, since it was the Rambo era) refused to go to Cannes.
  • This isn't meant to be heartless, but I think the world needs to get back to life as normal. I don't think the threats to security are any greater now than they have ever been, and we need to return to normal life for the sake of the economy. When are all these cancellations going to end?
  • Safety? What big name terrorist is going to hit a computer company convention? Sure they're pretty well known, but hardly a good target for destroying the Western world's economy or confidence. The number of attractive destruction targets that come ahead of Apple Expo number in the thousands. Why, even in Paris, I'd think there are more than a few famous landmarks that would be well publicized if they were to get destroyed. Apple Expo getting bombed would make front page news maybe, and only for one day.

    If anything, we should be promoting these kind of event, not just to show that our lives continue on despite the terrorists attempts to change them, but also to help bolster the airline industry. If things don't pick up quickly, even with the gov't bailout, several of the majors may go down this year.
  • Info here [oreilly.com]. It was going to be here in DC next week, and I imagine most of the attendees were flying into National Airport, which is closed indefinitely.
    • "It was going to be here in DC next week"

      No, I was going to be flying out tonight. It was starting tomorrow. I doubt that air travel is sufficiently close to normal for most participants to get there. My plan of bringing along my two sons was definitely out and I'm still not sure about the postponed conference.
    • There have been calls to close National Airport since that iced-up 737 crashed into a bridge over the Potomac years ago, probably even before that. It's location is just awful for jet aircraft, which have to fly some pretty bizarre approaches and takeoffs. But it was just too damn convenient for congresscritters wanting to commute home to their constituents.

      They really ought to close it permanently. It's an anachronism. Unfortunately now would be a psychologically bad time to do so.
  • I imagine it's not, but the first thing that flew into my mind was that this was possibly a 'protest' against France's... umm... how to say it... 'lukewarm support' for American policies in tracking and punishing the terrorists responsible for the WTC attack.

    • I'm not sure where you get that impression? One of the first world leaders to speak out in support of the United States was the French Prime Minister.

      I would confidently say that Apple had no political angle on this. I would suspect that Apple is primarily concerned about the logistics of people travelling all over the world to attend the conference. In addition, a sparcely attended event would only further aggrivate economic troubles that Apple will be facing from this tragedy. Like it or not, the terrorism has taken the wind out our sails for a little bit. I'm sure we will all get along with life once a critical mass of society feels normal again. That time hasn't been reached yet.
      • Agreed that's not the reason for it... just that it's what flew into my mind at first. And as for what I was talking about here you go. (I imagine this will get modded down as 'Offtopic,' even though it demonstrates what I was talking about.)

        France calls for American 'reason'

        By Harry de Quetteville in Paris and Toby Helm in Berlin
        (Filed: 14/09/2001)

        POLITICAL leaders in France and Germany urged President Bush yesterday to avoid a belligerent response, as fears grew in Europe of the consequences of swift and ruthless military reaction to the terrorist attacks.

        Lionel Jospin, the French Prime Minister, said the Americans should be "reasonable" in their response. Alain Richard, his defence minister, said the attacks were "not acts of war".

        M Jospin said: "We must vigorously condemn and combat terrorism. But we must not allow ourselves to be led into considerations of a conflict between the western world and the Islamic world, where we have many friends and partners."

        The remarks from the Socialist prime minister were aimed at reassuring both the France's political Left and its Muslim population, which numbers six million. But they will be seen as further evidence of disagreements between France and America on big foreign policy issues.

        The comments by M Richard will also undermine American confidence in France's commitment to joint reprisals as outlined by Nato members on Wednesday. He said: "I think that this was a terrorist attack of particular gravity.

        "American democracy is clearly endangered by such action, but in my opinion a war is something else entirely." France disagrees with US policy on missile defence, the bombing of Iraq and what it sees as American cultural imperialism.

        France's maverick health minister, Bernard Kouchner, went as far yesterday as to put the attacks down to a "series of errors" by America. "America's made a real mistake in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which was to train the Taliban," M Kouchner said.

        "To think now that there is some kind of consensus of 'honourable' nations against the 'bad' terrorists, is simply not true."
  • Last week during the disaster, hundreds of websites changed their front page to reflect the horrible disaster which occurred. Everything from search engines like google.com to humor sites like keepersoflists.org and even Microsoft.com put something up about the disaster. Apple blatently ignored the issue for several days, and while a tech support individual I spoke with (about an unrelated issue) said they were all stunned by the event, the web site did not reflect this for several days. It made me a little less happy to be a Mac user. (Yes, I use linux/unix every day as well)

    I wish Apple would have been a little cooler about the whole thing. At least they are finally catching up.

    Yuck.
    • I don't think "let's write something to put on our web site, and get one of the graphics guys to make a pretty logo with an American flag or something, so everyone on Slashdot will see how much we care" was the first thing that came to their mind. I think they were busy watching CNN. I know I was. When I did go to Apple's Web site, I was very impressed that they had replaced their entire front page.

      Snapshots from around the Web on 9/14/01 [webwizardry.net]
  • Honestly, you won't be more safe in the US than in the EU. My girlfriend and I both realize this and therefore are NOT canceling our Paris vacation, even though we're flying American Airlines from Boston. As long as they let us get on the plane on the 27th, we're going.

  • logistics (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rob colonna ( 72681 ) on Monday September 17, 2001 @01:33PM (#2310259) Homepage
    As one of the Anonymous masses mentioned above, this is not merely an issue of fearing potential attack upon the expo itself. Each of these expos has 100+ exhibitors, all of whom need goods transported, on time, safely, and, worse, in this case, across international borders. This may be now, and for the next few weeks both more difficult, and probably more expensive.
    Many companies nation, and even world-wide have issued directives stating that 'no one will be forced to fly'. Can you blame them for cancelling an event that may have been plagued by the resultant no-shows of the exhibitors? Business-wise it makes sense, and then, given that they are a prominent American corporation, the over-arching safety concern makes it a very sound decision indeed.
  • I wonder if this means that any other announcements (MacOS 10.1 intro) that were slated for AppleExpo will be held at Seybold in SF instead. It's also possible that they may have a special coming out party, like they did for the original iMac.
  • US Airliners are safer now then they have been in a long time thanks to beefed up US airport security. Noone has even made a peep that I've heard of a threatening move towards france.

    This is the wierdest PR excuse for a chnage of direction I've ever heard. Can ANYONE make sense of it for me??

    Frankly the US Airliens need the business, if Apple really was concerned with the fall out from this attack I'd thnk they'd want to help promote intercontinental flight...

    • Pretty Simple really. Steve did not want the true OS X comming out party to be a flop. He did not want it remembered for being insensitive to the crisis at hand. He would rather quietly release 10.1 in the specified time frame (Seybold) and let the passion of the Mac Faithful and new adoptees, with their newly aroused patriotism, be the show.

      I think it is a good call.
  • Let's say you're a billion dollar corporation who's just seen a huge tragedy happen in your home country possibly with several employees directly related to people involved in the tragedy. Are you going to force them to hope on a plane to some expo? Besides that, are you going to ask a bunch of other corporations to do the exact same thing? You won't be a billion dollar corporation for long with that sort of insensitive bullshit happening. It's also pretty ludicrous to try to hae a big international expo at the same time as a major downsizing in the worldwide travel market.

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