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Loading ...On the product launch bandwagon
Alex Watson
Whenever I tell anyone I’m a journalist, the image that usually comes to their mind is of invesitgative types like Bernstein and Woodward bringing shady government conspiracies to justice - assuming, of course, that I’ve made a decent first impression, and that they don’t think of me as some kind of Fake Sheik. When I mention it’s IT journalism, the usual reaction is to instantly replace the glamour and grit of Watergate with its polar opposite: dull work in a darkened room, lit only by TFT screens. It’s not always like that, I say. No. Sometimes I get to go to other countries… and… sit in darkened rooms lit only by TFT screens.
There’s a fair bit of travel involved in being an IT journalist; having just got back from Nvidia’s Editor’s Day 2007, I thought I’d share a bit of behind the scenes info about how a big product launch and briefing works, and what it involves.
If you’ve been following the site over the past week, you’ll have seen Nvidia’s been busy: first, it launched the GeForce 8800 GT, and it’s just recently announced its creation of ESA: Enthusiast System Architecture. In order to brief the press on these products - and two more, both under NDA until later in the month (the 12th and 19th are the dates for your diary) - Nvidia flew a selection of tech journalists to its home in San Jose, California.
Travelling from the UK to San Francisco takes about 12-14 hours if you fly direct; for some reason, I ended up flying via Dallas, where the massively sunny picture above was taken. From San Francisco it’s about a thirty or forty minute drive south to San Jose (Gmap). It’s a drive that’s half glamorous and half dull in a very American way. Mostly, it’s just the Freeway unspooling, but then the concrete breaks up and you see bright green exit signs to places that, to a tech fan, are famous: Paolo Alto (the home of Xerox PARC, where the GUI was invented), Mountain View (Home to Google), Sunnyvale (Both Yahoo and AMD), Cupertino (Apple) and Santa Clara (Intel).
The trip out was on the Wednesday; bright and early on Thursday we were on busses from the hotel in San Jose to Nvidia’s HQ. Having paid to ship us all the way across the world, Nvidia was keen to get it’s money’s worth, so we had a full day of presentations: essentially, all the journalists in a dark room, being talked to be a variety of people. Senior Nvidia engineers, product managers, a senior honcho from Microsoft gaming, and some game developers, including Mark Rein, VP of Epic. Although they’re all there to give talks accompanied by slides, in general the speakers were open to questions from the floor during and after their presentations. Nvidia is a savvy company, and knows that more information means more coverage. That and everyone speaking for them is passionate and devoted to the products and the company.
There are lots of numbers. They’re in confident mood.. We learn Nvidia has sold around 500 million GPUs since it started business, that PC gaming is in great shape - it’ll be worth $13billion by 2012. One speaker calls the PC ‘the fourth console, and what makes it that is GeForce.’ Kevin Unangst, Microsoft’s Gloabl Director of Games For Windows is similarly optimistic, calling Vista ‘the fastest selling software product in history,’ and evangelising DX10. It is difficult, when you’re sitting there, not to be swept along - the mix of well-researched numbers, American enthusiasm and jetlag makes it all quite compelling.
As well as stats and slides, there’s also a big focus on games (and how well the 88GT handles them): they have Call of Duty 4 and Crysis running on the big screen, along with UT3, Gears of War, and some titles due next year and in 2009 - including a lovely looking level from the STALKER prequel, Clear Sky, and a horror/mystery shooter from Germany and Poland called They.
At the end of the day, after all the tub-thumping and product announcements are done, it’s time for a Q and A session with Nvidia’s CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang. Within about five seconds, it’s instantly obvious why he’s the boss. He’s funny and very knowledgable - his answers to questions relating to CUDA and the impact on graphics of Intel’s upcoming Larrabee product displayed a deep grasp of the technical issues as well as a persuasive, compelling faith in Nvidia’s own approach and abilities.
With Thursday over, there’s a meal in the evening at which Nvidia’s speakers are all present, and the journalists carry on asking questions (and drinking) until the jetlag kicks in. On Friday morning, we’re back at Nvidia for ’round-table’ discussions with more Nvidia staff. These are smaller - groups of fewer than ten journalists, along with three or four Nvidia staff - and give us a good opportunity to ask more questions. It’s a two way process, too, with the team responsible for the Nvidia Control Panel in particular beingkeen to get feedback on the user interface and functions of the software.
By midday, I’m back in a car and on the Freeway towards the airport again. Flying back to the UK takes ages - time zones are not in my favour - and with the NDA for GeFore 8800GT expiring the following Monday, I’ve got send FTP details and my notes from the launch back to the rest of the team in the UK. When I land, it’s midday Saturday, and I need to stay awake, and to try, somehow, to get myself into the right timezone…
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