IDG, Apple Shake on Macworld SF

Trade show producer IDG World Expo this afternoon said Apple will participate in the Macworld San Francisco trade show in January.

Apple will have “a presence on the show floor as well as the keynote presentation from Steve Jobs,” IDG said in a statement.

The two sides, which have brawling since Thursday, say they are in talks regarding Macworld shows in New York in 2003 and Boston in 2004.

The announcement comes after IDG World Expo threatened to ban Apple from the San Francisco event if the computer maker didn’t participate in subsequent East Coast shows.

Charlie Greco, chief of the tech publisher’s event arm, said Apple won’t be allowed to “cherry pick” which shows it will attend. Greco’s comments were made to the
IDG publication MacCentral over the weekend.

Apple has said little since sparking the dispute Thursday, when it issued a terse statement saying it “disagrees” with IDG World Expo’s decision to
return the East Coast version of the show to Boston from New York in 2004.

The Cupertino, Calif., company dropped its public relations bomb just as officials from the city,
convention and visitors’ bureau and IDG World Expo held a media-friendly event championing the return of the show, and tens of millions of dollars it generates,
to the Hub.

The show, which draws thousands of Mac PC users was held in Boston for 13 years before moving to
New York in 1998. The reason for the move was a need for larger convention facilities, which it found in New York’s Jacob Javits Center, and more hotel rooms.

With a new convention center slated to open in 2004 on the South Boston waterfront and the Big Dig construction project at least showing signs of progress, city
officials believe the Hub is ready to host such a large industry event.

IDG World Expo has said the New York and Boston shows will go on, regardless of whether Apple comes or not.

“The Mac community on the East Coast deserves the chance to attend an event where they can meet one-on-one with the hundreds of companies that develop
products and services for the Mac, network with their peers, and take part in educational sessions designed specifically for their needs,” an IDG spokeswoman told internetnews.