1.11.2007
CES - day three - why we're here
Posted by Kate Ashley - Executive Director, Marketing & Retail Channel

Today wrapped up in spectacular fashion - successful meetings with our partners, great conversations with some new friends in the media, and quasi celebrity sightings in the casino (it was either Steven Tyler or Slash, I'm sure).

When I meet folks here at CES, their first question is usually - do you have a booth here? At first glance it might seem like common sense to exhibit our award winning systems in our own booth at the world's largest ce trade show, instead of in partners' booths as we do today. But here's why we don't and why we don't plan to in the future:

1. the cost - you'd think with 2,700 exhibiting companies dividing up 1.7 million square feet of show floor, it might not be so bad. But the truth is that it's incredibly expensive just to rent the floor space, never mind the cost of renting the equpiment, setting up the booth, staffing it and breaking it down. Many companies spend millions of dollars on their CES booths. We'd prefer to keep that money and invest it in our award winning PCs, instead of passing the cost onto our customers.
2. freedom - not being anchored to a booth gives us a lot more freedom to walk the show, meet people, and check out the latest products and technologies - something that's infinitely useful to our customers and the development of our product lines.
3. the audience - most exhibitors at CES are looking for customers. Velocity isn't in that boat since the majority of our customers are direct consumers. So it makes more sense for us to spend our time working on our goals and objectives. What are those goals? Keep reading...

We have three main purposes at CES. The first is to meet the press and get coverage of our systems to help spread the word about Velocity Micro (this is why we feature our systems in our partners' booths). The second is to support our industry partners and meet up with them. Everyone in the industry makes it to CES so it's a perfect place to hold meetings with just about everybody. And finally, we come to build relationships with some of our largest customers - like Best Buy.

CES 2007 has been an incredible show. You'll soon see some of the fruits of this event in our product lines - especially Velocity Micro notebooks and media center PCs . Keep checking in for updates and we will keep you posted on all new developments.

Thanks for your support!

[1.11.2007 @ 3:42 AM]  [Digg it]