DUBAI, 18 September 2007 — The trade show GITEX was a dull place this year, but GITEX Shopper & Consumer Electronics Expo 2007 was still bursting with energy. GITEX Shopper was held over 25,000 square meters of stands at Airport Expo Dubai. A new feature of the Shopper was that some companies sold bundles of items, uniting different brands, not simply bundles from one vendor. There were over 200 vendors with wares on display at the expo, but nothing was there that couldn’t have been bought elsewhere in Dubai at the same price. So why were so many people at the Shopper?

In addition to the idea of seeing so many items in one location, the crowds came out to GITEX Shopper in part due to the raffles and contests that are held along with the event. For example, in the high-value GITEX Shopper 2007 Mega Draw, visitors to the Shopper had the chance to win prizes including home theaters, PCs, laptops, cameras, mobile phones and a Peugeot 207 1.6 liter Coupe Cabriolet.

Microsoft wasn’t at the trade show but at the Shopper, Microsoft had put is resources into setting up a location to promote the Xbox, Windows Mobile and they had a relaxation area, too. HP’s Creative Workshop at the Shopper gave everyone a taste of the fun to be had with technology. A PDA clinic, karaoke and promotions galore created a lighthearted venue for a good time — that is if you could get into the venue.

Parking continued to be a nightmare at the Airport Expo. Visitors to the Shopper circled the parking lots for hours trying to find a place to leave their cars. Knowing about the parking problem, Arab News caught the mini-bus from the GITEX Trade Show at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC). In the bus, people were packed like sardines and it took an hour and 40 minutes to reach the destination due to traffic. At 7 p.m. we went out from the Shopper to catch the bus back to the trade show and discovered that there were no more buses going in that direction — even though GITEX Shopper would be open for hours.

So we walked 10 minutes to the taxi queue and stood, sweating in the heat for another 40 minutes. Then the director of taxi services at that location insisted that we share a taxi, which is illegal in Dubai, and eventually we were forced by the taxi driver to pay the full fare on the meter even though the taxi had gone back to DICEC via the airport to accommodate the other passenger sharing the cab — who paid the fare to that point as well.

We didn’t purchase anything at the Shopper which has become quite focused on consumer electronics rather than computer equipment. There were PCs for sale but even home networking equipment was hard to find at the Shopper and small office/home office technology wasn’t a focus at all. During the show we called back to local retailers in Saudi Arabia and they all either had the PCs being promoted at GITEX in stock, or they were expected in the next two weeks. There were some nice HD TVs on display, but I didn’t think they’d survive the flight back to the Kingdom.

One enormous concern was that some of the advertising for the Shopper promotions carried in the local press was incorrect. When Arab News checked the details of the PCs with salesmen at the Shopper, we discovered that in some cases, the FSB speeds of the products on sale at the Shopper, were lower than the products advertised. The front side bus (FSB) or system bus is the physical bi-directional data bus that carries all electronic signal information between the central processing unit (CPU) and the northbridge on the PC’s motherboard. An FSB with a lower speed results in slower performance of the PC. Why there was a discrepancy between the advertised machines and the ones on display at the Shopper isn’t clear, but it was fraud and the show organizers need to check the advertisements at next year’s event to ensure that they match up with the products on sale.