The Personal Communications Industry Association announced another initiative last week to turn the association around in the midst of dwindling membership and public-relations problems surrounding its annual trade show.
PCIA said it is repositioning and renaming its annual conference and trade show PCIA GlobalXChange to reflect the hottest topic in the wireless industry today-the wireless Internet.
“We took a look at the show and realized that we really needed to change the direction of the show, the content and the name to reflect the more modern times,” PCIA President Jay Kitchen told RCR. “The change that has taken place is exponential and more and more companies are getting involved. Content is becoming a very powerful part of the mix. We want to emphasize the convergence of the wireless Internet.”
The announcement came on the heels of PCIA’s revelation earlier this month that it was streamlining 10 positions and setting a new strategic direction to align with the emerging market trends, namely the wireless Internet.
Many industry players see PCIA as an unnecessary duplication of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association as the wireless market matures and consolidates. Many carriers and vendors are leaving the association and its trade show. Sprint PCS, Lucent Technologies Inc., Nokia Mobile Phones and L.M. Ericsson did not renew their memberships this year. Moreover, large vendors Lucent, Nokia, Ericsson, Nortel Networks Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. don’t expect to exhibit at this year’s show slated for Chicago in September.
“At the moment, we plan not to be at the show this year,” said Ericsson spokeswoman Kathy Egan. “We’re evaluating shows all the time to see if they fit in with our strategy.”
RCR first reported Lucent’s plans to stop exhibiting at PCIA’s future shows in North America last fall. The vendor said it wanted to focus its resources on the CTIA trade show and international shows, and that it was unhappy with show traffic during the last three PCIA shows.
All vendors are making tough business decisions when it comes to trade shows, which continue to increase in number around the world. Lucent this year is participating in almost four times as many trade shows in the Caribbean, Latin America and Asia-Pacific regions than in the United States.
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It’s unclear if PCIA’s newest move can woo vendors and carriers back. PCIA is aggressively working to recruit Internet and computing companies to join the association and the trade show.
“The real challenge is to win them back,” said Kitchen. “As we bring in Symbian, Yahoo! and Microsoft and these other people into our organization, it’s going to be hard for those people who have dropped out to stay out of the picture.”
Kitchen promised a number of announcements from PCIA in the coming months regarding membership and exhibitors from the Internet and computing world. One key player PCIA may need to recruit to achieve its goal is Microsoft Corp.
“We have some that are ready to sign up for exhibit space but now have put a hold on it because we are working with them on membership to bring them into the fold,” said Kitchen. “We’re also talking to them about where we’re going with all of our programs, and they want to participate.”
So the battle for the nontraditional wireless company appears to have begun. And Kitchen said he is finding open and willing participants in this space, as computing and Internet companies seek as much exposure as possible. But PCIA is running up against a dominant CTIA group whose recent trade show fanfare in New Orleans featured powerful companies in the computing and Internet world. PCIA also is competing with CTIA’s Wireless Data Forum, which has more than 100 members promoting the wireless data industry and puts on an annual show in the fall.
PCIA has said it is not worried.
“I really think that because this industry is so attractive, there are going to be lots of folks wishing to provide products and services,” John Sherlock, PCIA chief operating officer, said earlier this month.
PCIA also is hoping its recent agreement with E.J. Kraus, which produces 80 conferences annually in the United States and internationally, will help the association more strongly propel itself into international shows. EJK has named PCIA as the exclusive wireless trade association sponsor for 14 international Expo Comm conferences and exhibitions during the next two years. PCIA has struggled in recent years to produce international conferences on its own.