CeBIT reinforces its business-savvy image

Hanover: The Centre for Office and Information Technology (CeBIT), the annual high-tech event that takes place in Germany, will attempt to remake itself in its latest edition that begins on Tuesday.

The event, which will conclude on March 9, has a new gameplan intended to impress the corporate marketing departments that fund the annual event.

This year's event will be a day shorter and organisers say it will be more efficient and geared to the needs of business.

The new six-day CeBIT has undergone a complete rescheduling so that it can open on a Tuesday and devote itself to the needs of suited executives for the first four days. Saturday and Sunday is kept aside for the curious public.

CeBIT was formerly a seven-day fair from a Thursday to a Wednesday, with little business done on the middle weekend.

The Consumer Electronics Show held in January in Las Vegas and the IFA show in Berlin in August remain the world's premier technology expos.

For wireless phones, Mobile World in Barcelona every February has evolved into the principal annual event. That leaves CeBIT with a hodge-podge of miscellaneous products.

This year's event attracted about 5,500 exhibitors from 75 countries compared to 6,153 exhibitors and 480,000 visitors.

The fair was opened by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, sharing the limelight with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Deutsche Messe, organiser of CeBIT since 1986, insists that a 10 per cent drop-off in bookings for stand space to 240,000 square metres this year mainly reflects the weakness of the dollar as well as mergers among key clients.

The fair is losing its appeal and the number of exhibitors and visitors has been declining since peaking in 2001.

All the products on show at the new CeBIT are to be grouped into three new categories. Two of them are fairly arcane: business solutions and public-sector solutions, meaning the software and machines used by business and government.

The third category, Home and Mobile, will provide a somewhat incomplete view of the kind of products that general shoppers want to see, since some big brands will not be represented.

This year's CeBIT also has some broad themes including Green IT, the art of environmentally aware computing. Computer makers including Lenovo and Fujitsu Siemens as well as Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, will be unveiling energy-saving devices at the show.

And Greenpeace will hold its own event where it will examine the green claims of manufacturers.