CeBIT 2013

CeBIT 2013
March 5 – 9, 2013
Hanover, Germany
Hannover Exhibition Center

Attendees: 300,000+
Media: 3,500 +
Exhibitors: 4,157

Calysto Overview

The biggest IT show of the year takes place over five days in the northern Germany city of Hanover when the CeBIT information technology trade fair is held. CeBIT’s organizers at Deutsche Messe put this year’s attendance at upwards of 300,000. For perspective (admittedly comparing apples to oranges/digital IT and telecommunications solutions to mobile phones and tablets), the 2013 Consumer Electronics Shows in Las Vegas drew around 150,000, and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona drew 72,000.

However, there was some hand wringing that CeBIT isn’t what it used to be. Well, keep in mind that the European economy isn’t what it used to be either.

Frank Pörschmann, the Deutsche Messe managing board member in charge of CeBIT, was optimistic about the 2013 show, and announced at the closing press conference, “With even more trade professionals in attendance–accounting for more than 84 percent of the total–plus the show’s highly international mix of visitors from more than 120 nations and the highest number of IT decision-makers and purchasing managers in attendance in a long time, CeBIT has delivered the strongest performance we have seen in the last several years.”

However, eWeek’s Wayne Rash thought the number of international press representatives at CeBIT was down, which is a telling barometer for any show. “There was always space in the dedicated press coffee bar,” Rash said. “Not once was I forced to work without caffeine.”

But Rash attributes that to the European economy as well. “In fact, CeBIT was smaller this year not because trade shows or big technology events are somehow passé, but because the European economy is in a serious swoon. . . . The surprise isn’t that CeBIT took a hit from a weak economy. The surprise is that the show was strong enough to survive the past year of the EU economy and do as well as it has done.”

Here are some statistics provided by Deutsche Messe:

Visitors from more than 120 nations
More than 4,000 exhibitors from 70 countries, including many startups, which is on par with last year (but admittedly not the 8,000 exhibitors that were there in 2000)
International industry delegations from China, Iran, the U.S., Australia, European countries, Colombia, Switzerland and Germany
More than 200 start-ups participated in the international CODE_n competition
More than seven million business meetings took place over the five days of the event

Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke at the official opening of CeBIT, introducing this year’s theme, “Shareconomy:” sharing data, resources, goods and infrastructure.

CeBIT may be smaller, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Organizers said that they have been working to “sharpen the show’s focus” and lowered the number of complimentary admission tickets by 20 percent. “Our strategy was to focus on qualitative impact rather than sheer numbers,” emphasized Pörschmann. “Viewed in terms of attendance figures, the show attracted around 285,000 visitors. With regard to the impact achieved, we can rightly claim that the 2013 show has turned out to be one of the strongest and most effective CeBIT events in the past several years.”

Euronews reported: “. . . but this year the CeBIT, as it’s known, decided to dumb down by being more consumer-friendly and less of a playground paradise for the professionals. . . . But it was the gadgets which really pulled in the punters . . . with everything from a glove that can be used as a mobile phone to a remote-controlled spy helicopter.”

From Forrester’s James McQuivey: “. . . this year at CeBIT, the focus is less on the next big thing, which may end up being a passing trend in consumer gadgets, and instead is squarely placed on three things: cloud services, mobile experiences, and big data . . . These enabling technologies are harder to report on in the mainstream press–how do you showcase a cloud service on the evening news? But these technologies become concrete when you see how they power everything from crowdfunding service Indiegogo, which took the main stage before me at CeBIT Global Congress program today, to Fujitsu’s PalmSecure identity verification service, which is being built into the company’s tablets and will soon be installed in some Italian banks to verify customers.”

Overall, the European ITC ecosystem–customers, vendors, media and analysts–still show up at the CeBIT trade fair. For those with a well-thought-out communications plan that prevents them from getting overlooked in the noise, it’s worth the ticket price.

And lastly (although this may fall under the category of “too much information”)–they did the Harlem Shake at CeBIT 2013.