Expos galore in Rajasthan

Before the dust kicked up by controversies surrounding Rajasthan Computer
Dealers Association could settle down, the association is caught up in yet
another issue. This time the problems are surrounding the upcoming IT expo.
While Deepak Sharda, Secretary, RCTA has already issued an e-mail confirming the
details of the expo to members, there are some who are intent on baring the
holes in the plans and highlighting where RCTA is going wrong. This internal
unrest is threatening to throw the association out of gear.

The issue trails back to last year when IT Voice organized an expo in Jaipur.
Unable to organize its own, RCTA decided to piggyback on IT Voice's expo. This
year however both RCTA and IT Voice have announced their intentions to hold
separate expos, signaling dissent among the organizers. RCTA's expo is called
Computer Expo 2009 and will be held from

Aug 14-16. On the other hand Tarun Tonk, organizer of IT Voice, who is also a
member of RCTA, prefers to term his event a trade fair-IT Voice Expo 2009, and
it will be held from Sep 9-13.

Sharing details about IT Voice Expo 2009, Tonk commented that the theme this
year was 'Business with IT.' “There are many different associations, like
chemist and jewelery, that are associated with us. Our aim is to fulfill the IT
needs of the all those associations,” said Tonk. About 1.5 lakh visitors are
expected to come for the five day event.

Meanwhile, RCTA's expo is slated to be held from Aug 14-16 at Jawahar Kala
Kendra. Speaking about the reason behind organizing such an event, Sharda of
RCTA said, “The idea is to get partners together in one place and give them the
opportunity to meet vendors.” Sharda informed that vendors would be given a two
hour slot for showcasing their products and there would be sessions by vendors
on training the partners about technologies.

When questioned about why this year the two organizations were not conducting
the expo together, Sharda said that the association had a new team and was
excited about doing it on its own. Tonk took a more diplomatic stance by saying
that while RCTA would not be an official partner, it would be an associate
partner in IT Voice Expo 2009, signaling that there were no issues between the
two.

But while great efforts are going in to make things look fairly smooth on the
outside, the undercurrents of discontent are pretty strong. An e-mail sent out
from an un-known id, of a man identified as simply Dinesh Yadav, has asked some
pertinent questions to RCTA and laid bare the situation. One of the accusations
leveled at the organizers of the RCTA expo was that in their mail participation
by all vendors and distis operating in Rajasthan was being made mandatory.

The other point that was brought up in the mail was that while the
announcement had been made about the expo, a lot of the details were still
shaky. Just last week slightly different dates had been announced. A major
factor was that no committee had been set up to spearhead the expo. When
questioned about these aspects, Sharda commented, “As far are participation is
concerned, we are expecting all brands to be a part of the expo. It is an
association program so we look forward to all vendors' participation.” Sharda
confirmed that they had yet to finalize a committee for the event, but that
would happen by the end of the week.

Raj IT Forum, an online platform for local partners to communicate, which was
created by Arvind Modi of Bits and Bytes, has also been showing a lot of
activity on this front with members slugging out their queries. As an industry
veteran, Modi had felt the need to give back to the IT community, hence he had
created Raj IT Forum as a think tank to work for the betterment of the
community. “The idea was to keep RCTA on its toes and ensure that once people
are elected to senior posts they don't just sit through their terms,” exclaimed
Modi, adding that both the forum as well as he would oppose the decision to make
vendors and distis participation mandatory.

When questioned about the two expos taking place one after the other Modi
said, “Two expos happening within a month of each other in the same market would
not make sense. No company would have that much budget to sponsor two events.”
Asked which event he would be a part of Modi, who was traveling, without access
to mail, said that as of now he was not too sure and would decide once he got
back and had a look at the rate plans and other details of both expos. As an
afterthought he mentioned that RCTA's expo would probably be a success and IT
Voice would have to withdraw their plans. “No one will go against RCTA. I think
members will unite to make the expo successful,” opined Modi optimistically.