New Orleans has a very large conference facility.  It could easily handle
HPWORLD and INTERWORKS.  BUT....

I think Interex may be missing the point.  When the combined the original
HP 3000 user conferences with the HP-UX conferences, they indeed got a
boost for a while,  and the larger exhibit attendance made some the vendors
happy.  But they also diluted the value of the conference for HP 3000's.
As a result I believe fewer HP 3000 profs attend HP World, instead
switching to IPROF.

Having both HPWORLD and INTERWORKS in the same city, will be a repeat of
the problem.  Hotels rooms will be hard to find, air fare expensive, and
the presentations diluted.

Look back at the exhibits over the last couple of years,  Some of the
bigger exhibits HP are indeed selling to all OS platforms, but they bring
along HP e3000 and HP 9000 hardware and booth staff.  Vendors like Oracle,
no longer sell database products for HP e3000's so an HP e3000 visitor to
their booths are a waste of their time.  Likewise HP 9000 customers
visiting the Adager booth are cold contacts.

The reason why there is little overlap with the attendee's for HPWORLD and
INTERWORKS is that many of us that go to conferences are given the choice
of only one or two conferences a year.  So we choose the conference that
provide the best value.  You will have the same occurring with HPWORLD and
INTERWORKS... at the same location in 2002.

When ERP world and HPWORLD have been together, how much overlap occurs
there?  The bad part (like San Diego a couple of years ago), is that rooms
and flights are difficult get (over booked) and pricey.   The result is
instead of going to two good conferences in a year,  we must chose to go to
one PRICEY conference and hope there is good material.

Now if Interex were to re-consider the "super conference" strategy,  they
might be able to host the HP e3000 conference, HP-UX conference, .... etc
in almost any large city,  including Seattle,  Portland, Minneapolis,
Anaheim,  Orlando,  Baltimore, etc....

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