But some attendees were disappointed with IDF.

"It's not been the best IDF. We've been coming to these events for many, many years. Seems like more Intel, less customers," said Stephen Gentile, senior vice president for strategy and business development at Insyde Software, which offers PC, server and tablet firmware and software development tools.

However, Insyde is a key partner for Intel, so the company decided to attend. The company has yet to decide whether it will attend again next year.

There was not much foot traffic at a booth for storage company Virident, which was staffed by inside sales manager Constantine Tikhoniouk. But he found there were other reasons to attend IDF.

"It's more of a forward-thinking conference than going after existing technologies. From that perspective it is very useful," Tikhoniouk said.