After a dispute between the producer of Macworld Expo and star attraction Apple Computer Inc. rattled visitors and exhibitors at the summer edition of the big Mac show, the companies have joined forces for the San Francisco gathering in early January, officials said this week. Apple and IDG World Expo last week announced that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will return to the Macworld Expo keynote stage after skipping July"s event in New York. Jobs instead appeared at Apple"s own Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco in June, where he unveiled the "Panther" 10.3 version of Mac OS X. Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple said the Macworld snub was in response to IDG World Expo"s decision to move the East Coast show to Boston starting in 2004.
David Korse, the president of IDG World Expo, which produces Macworld Expo as well as LinuxWorld and other industry conferences, told eWEEK.com that pre-registration for the San Francisco show is "almost exactly on par with last year." As expected, some of the Macworld conference tracks will focus on content creation—no surprise given the Mac"s history in the graphics market and Apple"s Digital Hub strategy. In addition, sessions providing a deeper understanding of the BSD Unix-based Mac OS X look popular, one is already sold out.