The Macworld Conference and Exposition opened Monday in Boston, its first return since leaving Beantown for New York in 1998. The event is also the first major trade show to be held at the Boston Convention and Exposition Center, warming it up for the Democratic National Convention later this month.
Apple and several major vendors are absent from the show, including Adobe, Epson, Filemaker and Palm, although Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, and Quark are exhibiting at the event. This has impacted projected attendance and profit for the local Boston community, according to press reports. Past events have seen as many as 50,000 attendees, while only 10,000 are expected this week, potentially injecting nearly US$9 million into the local economy, in contrast to original estimates of more than $40 million.
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