IDG drops Boston Macworld

The annual Boston Macworld trade show, which once attracted 60,000 users of Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh computers, is shutting down, the victim of Apple's 2004 decision to end its participation in the show.

Last July's Macworld here attracted just 8,000 visitors, compared to the 36,000 who attended the annual West Coast Macworld show in San Francisco in January. Apple frequently unveils products at the West Coast show and the annual keynote speech by chief executive Steve Jobs there is one of the most closely watched events in the computer industry.

Mike Sponseller, spokesman for IDG World Expo, the Framingham company that runs the Macworld shows, said that computer product sellers have said they prefer to attend the San Francisco show. ''We've been doing a lot of research, talking to vendors, and basically the industry prefers to do just one event every year," said Sponseller. ''The decision on how we serve the Mac community isn't one we treat lightly. So we obviously talked to Apple. But this was our decision."

At its peak, Macworld was one of the largest technology trade shows on the East Coast and a major boost to the Boston tourist economy. The 1997 Macworld Boston also hosted one of the most famous speeches in Jobs's career. At the time, Apple faced a financial crisis, and many industry watchers expected it to go out of business, or be acquired by a larger rival. Instead, to the horror of Mac loyalists, Jobs said that Apple had accepted a $150 million investment from the company's most hated rival, Microsoft Corp. With a giant televised image of Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates looming in the background, Jobs said it was time for Apple partisans to put aside their irrational hostility to the world's largest software company. Not long afterward, Apple's fortunes began to improve. Today the company is solidly profitable, and its line of iPod music players has made it a leader in consumer electronics.

The 1997 show was the last Boston Macworld for six years. IDG moved the show to New York City in 1998 because it had outgrown the convention facilities then available in Boston. With the new Boston Convention and Exhibition Center under construction, IDG and Mayor Thomas M. Menino proudly said in autumn of 2002 that Macworld would return to Boston in 2004.

Apple replied with a bombshell: If Macworld left New York to return to Boston, the company would no longer participate. Apple never revealed its reason for the decision. Some industry watchers speculated that the company didn't want to abandon the world's leading media center for the less visible venue of Boston. Others theorized that Apple wanted to focus all its resources on the San Francisco show, and abandon an East Coast show altogether.

Still, IDG stuck with its decision to move the show, but with Apple absent, the 2004 Boston Macworld was a feeble affair, and didn't come close to filling the new convention center. This year's show moved to the smaller Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center, but even that space remained mostly empty, as many vendors of Apple merchandise stayed away.

Michael Oh, president of Tech Superpowers Inc., a Boston Macintosh computer consulting firm, said that despite the sparse attendance, his firm made a number of profitable deals at the past two Boston Macworlds. Still, Oh said he wasn't surprised by the show's fate. ''I'm disappointed to hear it," he said, ''but it doesn't shock me."

Pat Moscaritolo, president of the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau, also lamented the Macworld shutdown, but added that other shows will take up the slack. Next year, the LinuxWorld show, dedicated to the popular open-source operating system, will move from the Hynes to the new convention center. ''That's where the real growth is," Moscaritolo said. ''I think that LinuxWorld, within a three-year span, will make you forget Macworld."

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.