The world’s biggest technology trade show will feature razor-thin laptops, powerful new smartphones and fancy flat-screen televisions, but talk in the cavernous halls of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which kicks off today, may focus on whether the show itself has a long-term future, Reuters reported.

Apple Inc. does not even attend the show. Microsoft Corp. is making this year’s show its last. It has been a few years since Las Vegas-based CES had the “wow” factor.

“There’s a lot of hype. The promise exceeds the deliverable a lot,” said Todd Lowenstein, a portfolio manager at HighMark Capital Management, which owns several technology stocks. “I take an interest in it only to the extent that there’s market-moving information that comes out of there, which I find is rare.”

Steve Jobs’ stylish and dramatic product launches came to dominate the popular tech world, and rivals are looking to copy that outside the hubbub and razzmatazz of CES in Las Vegas.

Microsoft has long said that CES in early January does not fit its product release timetable, meaning it has little new to share in the opening keynote, which has for years been given by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and before him by co-founder Bill Gates.

“Microsoft can do this on their own; they don’t need CES,” said Hanson Hosein, a specialist in technology and media at the University of Washington. “These shows are generally declining in popularity anyway.”