By Ingrid Daschner
Harald Schmidt, a German TV entertainer with a penchant for uncomfortable truths and crude puns, once said: “Hanover may not be the arse of the world, but it does give you a good glimpse of it.”
Well, that’s not quite how I would describe the capital of Lower Saxony, but then our business doesn’t leave me enough time to investigate all sides of Hanover. For when the annual CeBIT exhibition is upon us, my life is dominated by the frantic run-up to the fair, numerous press kits and non-stop pitching.
Yet somehow it’s actually rather enjoyable – although I fully understand when I ring journalists up just before CeBIT when they say with a sigh of relief: “I’m so glad I don’t have to go to Hanover this year!” When I hear this, I can’t help feeling just a little bit envious… but I wouldn’t want to do without this dinosaur of a show, still defiantly calling itself “The World’s Greatest IT Fair”.
For instance, one thing that was completely missed by the non-CeBIT brigade this year was the opening event, which was honoured with the presence of Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Microsoft’s Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. Quite a line-up!
On saying that, I won’t comment on the German Chancellor’s pronouncement that, “it will take another one or two generations for computing to become as much second nature as motoring” – clearly, she’s not exactly an IT specialist...
This year, the trendy subject of “green IT” was everywhere, with an amazing amount of vendors focusing on issues such as energy consumption and recycling, or are at least pretending to do so. It should be interesting to see over the next few years who actually turns their words into action...
Other trends included much use of the word “virtualisation”, and all online activities being promoted under the banner of “Web 2.0”. And as always, there was no shortage of eye-boggling abbreviations – such as SOA, BI and PLM – which are so popular in our industry, but totally unintelligible to ordinary mortals.
My main problem with the exhibition this year was that the gigantic Hall 1 with its confusing roof ‘bunkers’ caused so many of us to be late for meetings. With its maze of aisles, Hall 1 rapidly turned into an adventure playground. Rumour has it that when a number of stands were dismantled, two journalists were discovered who had lost their way while trying to find the WordPerfect stand in 1995. Apparently, they had somehow managed to live on Cola and crackers among the remains of a long-lost software company which had disappeared in the take-over swamps of the nineties...
Of course, post-CeBIT always means pre-CeBIT, because while I’ve somehow managed to survive Hanover and its trade fair once again, I have no illusions about this being my last visit. Next year will undoubtedly see a repeat performance of everything that goes with it: congestion on the motorway, overpriced private accommodation in identical Lego-style red-brick bungalows, a tiny number of hotel rooms, crowded restaurants serving lousy food, awful weather, missed appointments and grumpy journalists. They’ll all be there – as every year. Q.E.D...
Comments