CES as an AT&T Developers' Summit?

AT&T has made a major effort to expand and enhance its developers summit conference by adding top executives and making some major announcements at the yearly event.  It has also co-located their  summit with the Consumer Electronics Show which is a must-see event for anyone in the technology business.  Last year, AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega laid out the company's plan to accelerate its 4G LTE deployment, as well as rebrand its HSPA+ network as a 4G network.  This year's summit is expected to bring more 4G LTE phones, Nokia 900, Windows phones, and a number of Android handsets, as the company looks to provide a spark to its LTE ambitions.  By making the summit a spot for major announcements, the company is raising the profile of the event, drawing even more developers at a time when all of the carriers are trying to rally more to their side.  AT&T announced the launch of its YP Developer Program, which is designed to help developers take advantage of the company's digital yellow pages business.  The program is separate from AT&T's core developer program.  The program will help developers create apps that can access YP's 17 million local listings and 4,600 business categories.  AT&T will be focusing on getting developers to build apps that can run on its network more efficiently, an ongoing push for the company.  Another major theme will be promoting HTML 5 as a standard to create apps. It's one of several companies actively pushing HTML 5.  AT&T has also expanded the number of sessions available to developers, with many them offering tutorials on technical details and a chance to play with the latest devices.  The sessions also include AT&T's partners, including Qualcomm, Microsoft and other vendors.  The event actually started unofficially yesterday with a hackathon, when developers quickly program new apps. It's one of my many such contests AT&T holds each year to promote apps.  (Research Source:  CNET)