Back to the Bay: CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment 2007 set to kick off in San Francisco

After a one-year hiatus when the show visited Los Angeles, the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment event is back in the city by the Bay for 2007. The move is minor considering the wireless trade association’s larger spring show has been bouncing between the west and east coasts over the past several years.
Following the fall show tradition, this year’s event is dedicated to the divergent topics of enterprise and entertainment, a mix that can be observed on the show floor as the number of attendees in casual attire is usually equal to those in more formal, business wear.
While CTIA did not provide estimates for attendance this year, the organization did expect to match last year’s approximately 300 exhibitors-with 97% of booth space sold out as of last week. Last year’s event also drew more than 15,000 attendees spread across 60,000 square fee of exhibit space.
Unlike last year’s event, which featured round-table panels during the keynotes, this year’s show will feature single speakers during the morning sessions. Scheduled to join CTIA CEO Steve Largent on stage for the show’s opening is Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer for a session dedicated to the “enterprise.” The following day Largent will be joined by Facebook co-founder and VP of engineering Dustin Moskivitz for a session dedicated to “community.”
The third day keynote is scheduled to feature Atish Gude, senior VP of mobile broadband operations at Sprint Nextel Corp.’s Xohm business unit, which runs the carrier’s WiMAX operations. Sprint Nextel, which lost its CEO last week, has been very active over the past several months hyping its WiMAX plans that are to include a “precommercial” service launch in Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., by the end of the year and more than 100 million potential customers covered by a commercial service by the end of 2008.
Following the keynote sessions will be the opening of the exhibit floor-open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday-as well as afternoon educational sessions, a policy outlook track and CTIA’s Smart Pass Executive Conference.
In addition to the hundreds of exhibitors on the show floor, CTIA has set aside a number of sections for specific vendors, including an Enterprise Mobility Pavilion, Developers Pavilion, M2M Zone, U.K. Pavilion, Ontario-Canada Pavilion, M-tertainment Pavilion and the Deloitte Wireless Fast 50 Pavilion.
Pre-conference activities are scheduled for Oct. 22 highlighted by the Mobile Entertainment Live event at the Moscone Center. This year’s MEL will include the usual speakers hyping the entertainment benefits and possibilities in wireless as well as featuring a lunchtime question and answer session with record producer Quincy Jones.
Other pre-conference activities include the Fourth Generation Mobile Forum, Marketing-The Mobile Channel, Navteq’s Connections 2007, Smart Phone Summit 2007 and Enterprise Mobility.