As most of you know, CeBIT just ended and I wanted to quickly share my views of the show.
While the show had got off to a good start with about 200k people attending (despite heavy snow and cold temperatures, -7 when I was there) it seems that numbers were down a bit for the remaining few days. Also, companies such as Cisco were not in attendance. This year new displays like RFID and convergence exhibited, up from 30 last year. As usual, there were an array of bizarre booths such as battery manufacturers and industrial sized laminators. Interestingly, while CeBIT has always been seen as a European/German event, US visitors were up for the first time since 9/11, by 38%.
Text 100 clients, including Philips, Novell and Avaya and Fujitsu among others were also in attendance and had strong presence at the show.
While CeBIT remains a b2b show, consumer products were in abundance and the organisers also attempted to attach a gaming contest and Digital Living display - although it has to be said with no great success. The major hot trends seemed to be monitors and TVs with the likes of Samsung and Panasonic making claims to have the largest screens. Microsoft also made big noises with its new Origami product (name to be changed apparently) and there were more iPod attachments and look-a-likes than you could shake a nano at.
My personal favourite was the robot luggage which can trail after you using a wireless signal or voice command.
Pete Jacob
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