Editing COMDEX (section)

===Attendance===
COMDEX was initially restricted to those directly involved in the computer industry. It was the one show where all levels of manufacturers and developers of computers, [[peripheral]]s, [[software]], components, and accessories met with distributors, retailers, consultants and their competitors.{{Citation needed|date=December 2015}}

Colloquially known as "[[Geek]] Week", COMDEX evolved into a major technical [[Convention (meeting)|convention]], with the industry making major product announcements and releases there.  Numerous small companies from around the world rose to prominence following appearance at COMDEX, and industry leaders sought opportunities to make keynote addresses.  They discussed the computer industry, history, trends and future potential. The first COMDEX Conference, attracted 4000 paying attendees and grew to over 100,000, becoming a launch platform for key technologies. [[Bluetooth]] and [[USB]] had conference programming and associated exhibition floor pavilions to help these technologies and start up companies be seen in such a large event and marketplace. In 1982, [[Microsoft]] founder [[Bill Gates]] attended the conference and saw a demonstration of [[VisiCorp]]'s [[Visi On]], a GUI software suite for IBM PC compatible computers. The development of [[Windows 1.0]] began soon thereafter. In 1999, [[Linus Torvalds]] attended the exhibition to talk about the [[Linux]] family of [[operating system]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9911/19/comdex.linux.idg/index.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010509074116/http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9911/19/comdex.linux.idg/index.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=May 9, 2001|title = CNN - Comdex: Linux, Linux everywhere - November 19, 1999}}</ref> A Linux conference and exhibition hall was a co-located event, helping elevate the open source products.

In the late 1980s, COMDEX was opened to the general public, causing an explosion in attendance, {{Citation needed|date=December 2015}} but diluting COMDEX's  [[wholesale]] industry focus.{{Citation needed|date=December 2015}}  Retailers and [[consultant]]s complained that 'leading edge' customers, upon whom they relied for early adoption of new technology, were buying products at 'show specials' and then expecting the dealers to support those products. {{Citation needed|date=December 2015}}. The broadening of audience criteria came about as IT departments decentralized and purchasing of technology products shifted from a central corporate IT budget to departments and company divisions, mirroring the shift from mainframes to decentralized networks and local area networking, and later the Internet as the corporate backbone.