Las Vegas is preparing itself for an IT invasion next week when it plays host to this year's Comdex Fall show, which runs from 13-17 November and is expected to be visited by 250,000 people.

Key industry speeches delivered at the show are set to focus heavily on desktop and client devices, with Microsoft, Hewlett Packard (HP), Dell and Ericsson all represented through corporate chiefs Bill Gates, Carly Fiorina, Michael Dell and Kurt Hellstrom, respectively.

Microsoft may once again dominate the show, with a host of new software and operating system developments scheduled to go display. First up will be further architecture briefings and examples of its .Net initiative.

The .Net programme is Microsoft's attempt to reinvent its main operating system and application products as XML-based hosted services that can be rented from, or managed by, external providers.

Finally, the first beta of Whistler, the next generation of the Windows operating system, is likely to be on show. Whistler is the single-platform Windows operating system that will replace both Windows 2000 and Windows 95/98/ME and is based on the same NT kernel as 2000.

Corel will be previewing its WordPerfect Suite 10, one of the main rivals to Microsoft office, with newly developed features for WordPerfect 10, Quattro Pro 10, Corel Presentations 10, CorelCentral 10 and Paradox.

E-book technologies are also likely to play an important part in the show, with a number of companies pushing both hardware e-book viewers and a number of competing formats for e-book files and viewing software.

In particular, Ebook Systems will unveil new software that compiles and reformats websites into book form for offline reading and distribution.

vnunet.com will have special coverage of the show in depth throughout the week.