An expected half a million people will descend on Hanover, Germany, later this month for the annual Cebit trade show, where organizers hope to brush off the industry downturn with new products in areas such as high-speed networking, voice-over-IP, storage, and smart mobile phones.
Attendance at the show has fallen in recent years from a peak of about 800,000 in 2000, as the industry -- and the world -- hunkered down against the reeling economy, the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the threat of terrorist attacks. But with signs of recovery in the air, organizers still hope to attract 550,000 showgoers this year, about level with last year's event, said Jorg Schomborg, managing director of Cebit Worldwide.
"Even if many clouds are still in the sky, we see signs that the ICT worldwide markets are entering a new phase of recovery and development," Schomborg said Tuesday during a conference call with reporters to discuss the show. "Our message today is that we are out of the tunnel -- or as they say in our industry, there's a light at the end of the fiber."
Running from March 18 to 24, Cebit will occupy 26 halls and host 6,300 vendors from 66 countries, Schomborg said. Business users are the primary focus, he said, although the opening speech will be given by Sony Corp. President Kunitake Ando, along with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The ICT World Forum, a sister event close by, will feature the top executives from PeopleSoft Inc., Siebel Systems Inc., Nokia Corp., Vodafone Group PLC, Lucent Technologies Inc. and others.
After several false starts, VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) is expected to assert itself at this year's show. Just this week, Nortel Networks Corp. unveiled Wi-Fi handsets, access points and other gear that lets users make voice calls over IP networks. Nortel, Proxim Corp. and Alcatel SA will announce further products at the show, including gateways, PBX systems and products for adding security and management to VOIP systems, said Tom Henderson, managing director of ExtremeLabs Inc., an analyst company in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Mobility will likely be a major theme again this year as it was last year. Nokia, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and the other big phone makers are expected to show off new smart phones with cameras and other features that take advantage of high speed GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) networks. Service providers such as Deutsche Telekom AG will plug location-based services and multimedia applications, Henderson said.
"Analysts continue to scoff at video and location-based services, but they are real and they are driving a revolution in mobile devices," he said.
Demand for wireless data services is driving the need for access points, handsets and notebooks that combine support for GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), GPRS, EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution) and Wi-Fi in a single product. "Several new technologies in this arena will be shown," Henderson said.
Two upcoming wireless technologies, Ultrawideband (UWB) and WiMax, will also be pushed at the show, with prototypes on show from a handful of vendors.
UWB, which is expected to hit the market next year, could clear up the mess of wires in most homes by shuttling digital files between PCs, video cameras and other devices up to 30 feet apart and at data rates of up to 480M bps (bits per second). A battle over standards between Motorola Inc. and a group of vendors led by Intel Corp. may slow its development.
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