In difficult times, the annual computer trade fair CeBIT (2–6 March 2010) has successfully accomplished a turnaround and opened for new topics again, according to Achim Berg, Microsoft Germany CEO and Vice President of BITKOM.
“A business-only trade fair does not work anymore, that has come perfectly clear since two, three years,” Berg stated. In the meantime, the trade fair has massively opened itself to new topics, included the consumer market. “For us, CeBIT is a real pearl.”
For many innovations today, it is the private consumers that start innovations, before they are introduced in the business sector. Berg mentioned the example of the growing market share of smartphones or communication channels like messaging, areas launched just by private users. “CeBIT has understood that, we consider that to be extremely positive.”
For many years, the leading trade fair had tried to exclude consumer electronics, to get distinguished as business fair in the growing competition. Once, even Sony have to remove their game console Playstation from the CeBIT booth, after Microsoft complained as they had been forbidden to demonstrate the Xbox.
In this year, the number of exhibitors has decreased again. With 4,157 companies from 68 countries, the organizator has the lowest participation rate since 20 years. However, the trade fair could gain some 300 new companies coming for the first time to Hanover, like Google and the online retailer Amazon.
Microsoft is going to present itself with 50 partners on the trade fair starting next week. One of the absolute hot topics for the company is Cloud Computing in all variations. Thereby, Microsoft showcases different solutions that store data in the Internet “Cloud” instead of on servers or computers. Microsoft is also going to demonstrate its new operating system Windows 7 that had been contributing to the push of the PC sector since October 2009.
More information
- Microsoft Germany (www.microsoft.com/germany)
- CeBIT trade fair (www.cebit.com)
- MACHs Live (twitter.com/machslive)