Cebit grows up

Beverley Head
Tuesday, 31 May 2011 17:42

IT Industry - Market

The giant computing exhibition and conference Cebit celebrates its first ten years in Australia this week, and judging by the composition of the crowds and the calibre of vendors, the event seems to have done a lot of growing up during the decade.

Admittedly there are still the quirky stands - this year's award for the most peculiar goes to USA New and Used which is hawking cheap US property, on the market as a result of the sub-prime crisis and resultant mortgage foreclosures. Somehow the flyers exhorting people to use their superannuation to buy US real estate seem out of kilter with the very business-technology  focussed tone of the exhibition.

And exactly what was the display of kitchen appliances doing in the huge Shenzen China marketplace?

By and large however Cebit has discovered its serious business edge and attracted high calibre demonstrations in the exhibition halls from major vendors, and leading national research organisations NICTA and CSIRO. Today it also set the scene for the long awaited launch of the national Digital Economy strategy.

According to Cebit since the event first kicked off in Australian in 2002 it has attracted almost 250,000 visitors, and was this year expected to draw crowds of more than 30,000.

This year the event has also attracted 594 exhibitors, and is drawing significant audiences to its conference streams.

However it seems to have been caught unawares by the relative interest for different conference streams. Today's cloud computing stream was held for example in a packed ballroom where it was standing room only for latecomers, while the simultaneous executive briefing conference was playing to a relatively empty auditorium.

What are Barry O'Farrell's IT plans for NSW? Read on...