Welp, the other shoe has finally dropped in the Jobs vs. Greco chest-thumping contest over the location of Macworld Expo next summer, although said shoe technically has three more weeks of freefall before it actually hits terra firma. For those of you who might need a refresher on this whole sordid story, it all started last October when IDG top dog Charlie Greco concluded months of negotiations with city officials by formally announcing that, in 2004, the summer Macworld Expo would leave New York City to return to its roots in Boston. Despite having known about the prospective move for months and allegedly never voicing any objection whatsoever, Apple torpedoed IDG's press conference by quietly issuing a statement that same day to the effect that if the show did indeed move back to Boston, Apple wouldn't bother showing up-- which, even if it was a reasonable stance to take, was a pretty obnoxious way to take it.

And thus began the fascinating Alpha Male duel known to Marlin Perkins fans as the "Waving of the Genitals." In response to Apple's aggressive ultimatum, Greco slyly issued his own: come to the Boston show, or we won't let you attend the San Francisco one. The only problem, of course, is that if that threat were any more toothless, it'd be gumming Cream of Wheat and attending casting calls for Fixodent commercials. Eventually the threat was rescinded, IDG announced that Apple was "welcome" to attend the San Francisco show, and both sides "agreed to hold ongoing discussions" about whether or not Apple would show up in Boston. Meaning, of course, that Greco punked out-- which wasn't surprising, given the circumstances.

The next big development happened in February, while the AtAT staff was on sabbatical Scotchgarding the rainforests; quoting the Boston Herald, MacNN reported that Greco had left IDG (hmmm, yeah, "left") and that his departure might "complicate" the Expo's move to Boston-- although Greco himself reportedly said that he "expects to see [Apple] set up a booth alongside hundreds of companies that sell products for its machines." Well, good news, Charlie; they probably will! Just, um, not in Boston. As noted by faithful viewer David Poves, the Boston Herald now reports that the move back to Beantown "may not happen after all," since Greco's successor David Korse insists that there's no signed contract or "binding commitments" with Boston and now says that "it could make more sense to keep the show in New York."

So apparently Shawn King of Your Mac Life was correct when he predicted that a Grecoless IDG would stick with New York and leave Boston in the lurch. Personally, given the bizarre circumstances of Apple's original out-of-the-blue anti-Boston press statement, we'd been betting that this whole thing was all a face-saving excuse for Apple to extricate itself from the cost and logistics burden of summer Expos altogether, regardless of where they might be held-- but let's assume for a moment that Apple does want to attend, provided the show stays in NYC. Korse insists that he's "launched an in-depth study on the merits of New York vs. Boston" to decide the show's fate; geez, how in-depth does this study need to be? Our own comprehensive research and statistical modelling indicates that only six to eight people would attend a Boston Macworld Expo sans Apple, and only two vendors would actually bother to exhibit: the Boston Mac Users Group, and the guy who wrote Ventiloo.

IDG's official stance is that it will "make a final decision by Labor Day," but the Herald reports that the show's organizers have already "canceled reservations for a major block of rooms at the Seaport Hotel during the event next year"-- which pretty strongly implies that the decision's been made, and IDG will devote the three weeks until September 1st to spin, spin, spin. That's sort of a shame, because we were really looking forward to seeing the inside of Boston's new convention center next year, especially without any actual people or booths in it. ("It's just so clean!") Given that IDG is local to Boston and the Expo move is really important to the city, we can't wait to hear how it phrases its decision to bail. And given the dearth of any really solid drama in the news lately, we're anxious to see exactly how quickly IDG headquarters gets burned to the ground by locals crying treason...