CeBIT 2010 showcases global digital world

CeBIT 2010, 2 to 6 March

    * Opening ceremony to feature Angela Merkel and José Zapatero
    * This year's keynote theme: "Connected Worlds"
    * Exhibitor figures match previous year's level

With "Connected Worlds" as its keynote theme and a rate of exhibitor participation running at the same level as last year's event, CeBIT 2010 is ready for takeoff on 2 March in Hannover. "Companies from 68 different nations are coming to CeBIT in Hannover this year to achieve new growth for their business," declared Ernst Raue, Member of the Managing Board of Deutsche Messe, on Monday in Hannover. "In 2010 CeBIT will once again serve as the digital industry's most dynamic marketplace. Hannover is the place where providers, users and political representatives come together to network," he continued.

On the evening of 1 March, CeBIT 2010 will be officially opened by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The current President of the European Council and Prime Minister of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, will speak as the representative of the CeBIT Partner Country at the event's opening ceremony. The opening ceremony will moreover mark the occasion for the first public appearance by SAP's co-CEOs Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe since their appointment at the beginning of February. McDermott will speak before an audience of around 2,000 guests at the Kuppelsaal auditorium at the opening event in Hannover.

"CeBIT is coming at exactly the right time," said Raue. "In some segments of the ICT market, the mood is gradually beginning to pick up, since the investment backlog over the past 18 months is gradually beginning to dissolve. The industry naturally still has to deal with the economic crisis, but CeBIT's traction remains unbroken." A recent sample survey of ICT users commissioned by CeBIT revealed that the willingness to invest had gone up substantially over the past few weeks. "Companies from Germany and abroad are now tackling ICT projects which had been put on ice in 2008 and 2009 as a result of the global economic crisis. This development will become tangible at CeBIT," asserted Raue.

Almost 300 companies will be participating for the first time at this year's CeBIT, including Google, the American Internet service provider Amazon Web Services, the Japanese music instrument manufacturer Roland, the Spanish telecommunications group Telefonica and the British manufacturer 3M Touch Systems. More than 100 firms are returning to CeBIT after taking a break from the event, including AMD, Ericsson, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Terratec and Trend Micro.

For the first time at any exhibition, the CIOcolloquium will appear at CeBIT 2010. This network includes the CIOs of Germany enterprises. This network's representatives have access to an annual budget of more than 40 billion euros for ICT expenditure. The CIOcolloquium has also invited international partner organizations from eight different countries to be part of the proceedings.

All in all, a total of 4,157companies (2009: 4,292) from 68 different nations (2009: 69) are appearing at CeBIT 2010. And the organizers are expecting more than 100 political and business delegations to attend.

This year's CeBIT is focusing on the fundamental trends in the world of ICT, above and beyond the individual components in the digital supply chain, explained Raue: "Many exhibitors have integrated the keynote theme of 'Connected Worlds' into their own presentations," he reported. "CeBIT 2010 will offer an impressive demonstration of how the borders between work and leisure, mobile and stationary, online and offline continue to disappear. For hardware and software solutions, the same description applies: continually easier, continually faster and continually more integrated, or networked."

At the new "Broadband World" pavilion, produced jointly by the BITKOM association and Deutsche Messe, companies will be showcasing approaches to mastering the challenge of rapidly growing data volumes in our networks. This includes the opportunities offered by the next generation of mobile communications, LTE (Long Term Evolution). "High-performance, stable and fast access to the Internet is becoming an increasingly critical factor in international competitiveness. A log jam in the Internet due to growing data volumes would constitute a brake on growth," commented Raue.

The new "CeBIT Sounds!" event represents the entry of music at CeBIT. "This is not just about music, but also about the creation of joint new business models between the music industry and the ICT sector. This is a multi-billion dollar market. In times where the big music companies are experiencing a drastic decline in sales and revenues, the parties involved need to discuss and embark on joint new paths," declared Raue.

The topic of "green IT" continues to yield new content areas. With the support of BITKOM and the Federal Ministry of the Environment, CeBIT will feature the aspect of "green through IT." "There is an enormous amount of 'green leverage' which intelligent ICT systems now have to offer their user industries. Companies in Hall 8 will be demonstrating that the ICT sector has the right tools for solving many of our climate protection challenges," reported Raue.

CeBIT has also made a concerted effort to expand its offerings for small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). Apart from numerous solutions designed to make SME processes more efficient, there will also be a special television studio - the "SME Studio" - dedicated to covering issues of vital interest to SMEs. Tailored visitor programs round off the range of offerings for SMEs.

Raue remarked that CeBIT was also increasingly developing into an international knowledge hub. "Leading minds from the ICT industry across the globe will be speaking at the CeBIT Global Conferences. This event has advanced to become the most high-caliber conference for the entire ICT sector," he stated. Participants include Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, Telefonica CEO Cesar Alierta Izuel and Dr. Werner Vogels, Vice President of Amazon. Anyone who wanted to know the topics that would be preoccupying business and society over the next few years had to visit the CeBIT Global Conferences, said Raue. The conference program has also been enhanced by a substantially expanded range of guided tours through the individual display sectors.

Apart from Chancellor Angela Merkel and President José Zapatero, the opening event will also feature Lower Saxony Prime Minister Christian Wulff and BITKOM President August-Wilhelm Scheer. "We are also excited about the speech by the new co-CEO at SAP, Bill McDermott. SAP is already taking advantage of CeBIT like no other company this year," exclaimed Raue. And Michael Kleinemeier, Managing Director of SAP Germany, stated: "As Europe's biggest software enterprise, SAP is breaking new ground at CeBIT 2010. Our expanded presence at the exhibition, in the form of the concurrent customer conference entitled 'SAP World Tour', offers interested visitors a new quality and depth to their tradeshow visit, promoting even more intensive networking with customers and partners."

And for high-tech fans, CeBIT 2010 features myriad attractions - from the new electronic personal ID card and numerous innovations from universities and research institutes, to IT applications for medicine and the latest trends in mobile communications and laptops. "Because we are expecting strong attendance on 'CeBIT Saturday', we have developed the 'CeBIT Now!' program, which is especially intended to give private visitors a concise overview of all the exciting topics covered at CeBIT 2010," concluded Raue.


-Hartwig von Saß-