Because it says trade shows have become a small part of its marketing mix, Apple has announced that next month's Macworld Expo in San Francisco, taking place Jan. 5-9, 2009, will be its last.The company, which has long delivered a keynote address at the annual Mac products event, has historically used the conference as a platform for launching new products, including the iMac, the iBook, iTunes, Apple TV and the iPhone.Normally delivered by Steve Jobs, who's given the Macworld address for each of the past 10 years, Apple's closing keynote will be delivered by Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing."Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before," Apple said in a statement last week, "so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple's Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com Web site enable Apple to directly reach more than 100 million customers around the world in innovative new ways."According to Apple, the company has been scaling back on trade shows for several years, withdrawing in recent years from the National Association of Broadcasting (NAB) show, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.