Steve Jobs to keynote Macworld San Francisco

IDG World Expo announced today that Apple chief executive Steve Jobs will deliver the opening keynote address for Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco this January.

Jobs' keynote is scheduled for Tuesday, January 10, 2006 at 9:00 a.m. Macworld will take place at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, running January 9-13, 2006.

"Steve's keynote is always a great way to kick off the biggest Mac event of the year," said David Korse, CEO of IDG World Expo. "We've added several new features to this year's event, and we're working hard to make this the most entertaining and informative Macworld ever."

At last year's expo, Jobs introduced the iPod shuffle and Mac mini to much fanfare. He also rolled-out a major update to Apple's iLife digital lifestyle software suite (iLife '05) and introduced the company's iWork productivity suite.

The 2005 expo also showed sizable growth from the previous year, with an 11-percent overall attendance increase, IDG said.

There was also a 13-percent increase in the number of paid conference delegates; a 10% increase in the number of exhibitors; and a 31-percent increase in the average number of hours spent on the exhibit hall floor by attendees.

Both analysts and insiders are expecting Jobs to use the 2006 expo to introduce the first Macintosh systems that will be based on processors from Intel Corp.

Additional Macworld 2006 event highlights and registration information are available on the Macworld Conference & Expo Web site.