“In an apparent reversal of a decision made in October by former IDG World Expo president Charlie Greco, the company’s new chief executive, David Korse, has launched an internal study to determine whether the show should be returned to Boston. IDG’s decision to reconsider the move is a blow for Boston tourism officials, who offered the company everything from free rent to the use of the Boston Public Library in an effort to land the show as the opening event at the city’s new convention center next year,” reports James Collins for The Boston Globe.

“‘The early signals we’re getting are not good as far as the show coming to Boston, and as far as the future of the East Coast show in general,” said Jim Rooney, executive director of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority. ”We’ll regroup, though. It’s one show, and there’s a big marketplace out there,”’ Collins reports. “IDG has no legal obligation to bring the show to Boston, and Rooney expressed doubt that IDG would hold any expo for Macintosh computer users on the East Coast next year.”

Collins reports, “‘We’re trying to determine the best thing to do with the product, which is very different from what Charlie Greco envisioned,” Korse said yesterday. IDG will make its decision by Labor Day, he said… The show will no longer bear the name ‘Macworld.’ If IDG does decide to hold an event on the East Coast next year, it will be known as CreativePro, Korse said. In the future, the annual Macworld Expo in San Francisco will be the only US trade show to use the trademark name. Korse said the name change reflects the new target audience of the show: design, publishing, and media production professionals. ‘It’s now a very different event than the one that existed when the decision to move it to Boston was made last year,’ Korse said. ”Macworld is only going to happen once a year, in January, in California.”’

Full article here.