CeBIT, the world’s biggest trade fair for the digital industry, has a new format this year. It offers more efficiency, more variety, and the running time has been cut by one day. For the first time the show runs from Tuesday to Sunday (4 to 9 March).
     The international flagship show is now much more closely geared to the needs of users. The various market segments have been grouped together into three main display sections: Business Solutions, Public Sector Solutions and Home & Mobile Solutions. These three pillars of the show are underpinned by a fourth section, Technology & Infrastructure.
     CeBIT 2008 offers notably more in terms of content and variety. One example is the integration of the TeleHealth conference and exhibition into CeBIT. Among the new themes for 2008 are Consulting & Services, Learning & Knowledge Solutions and Design: driving innovation.
     The supporting conference program----now renamed ‘eBIT Global Conferences----is also being substantially expanded. High-caliber speakers from all over the world have been signed up for the CeBIT keynote addresses and the newly created Executive Labs (panels of experts debating the issues).
     Among the hot topics featured prominently at the forthcoming event are green IT, recruitment, Web 2.0, eGovernment, mobile communications and healthcare.
     The official Partner Country for CeBIT 2008 is France. The opening keynote addresses will be given by Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy and BITKOM president Prof. August-Wilhelm Scheer.

Top trends
     According to the latest TELCO Trend survey conducted by Steria Mummert Consulting, mobile Internet stands to become the key future sales engine for the telecommunications sector. Of the experts surveyed, 56.5 percent ranked the mobile Internet as the most important mobile communications service, followed by text messaging (54 percent), the mobile office (50.8) and voice services (44.4).
     The demand for mobile Internet access is particularly strong among business clients, who want to be able to use e-mail plus address and calendar management on the road. Traditional telephony on the other hand is losing ground: Only four out of ten telecom companies expect to register long-term growth through sales of voice services. Mobile Internet is set to receive an additional boost from stepped-up marketing of inexpensive data transmission flat rates as well as next-generation mobile phones. By the end of 2007, more than ten million Germans already owned a UMTS-capable device.
     These hotly anticipated new mobile trendsetters, characterized by very high-speed Internet access, will go on display at the upcoming CeBIT from 4 to 9 March. Growing UMTS broadband coverage allows for download rates of up to 7.2 megabits per second----more than three times the speed of conventional DSL fixed network access. Uploading data has also become significantly faster, thanks to the new HSUPA technology (High Speed Uplink Packet Access), reaching up to 1.45 mbps. Further innovative features are also anticipated - for example, gesture control and integrated navigation chips.
     Mobile television via cellphones, PDAs or navigation devices will be in the spotlight at the digital industry’s biggest exhibition. In mid-October 2007 the General Conference of the German state regulatory agencies for television selected the Mobile 3.0 company as the provisional operator for the coming DVB-H platform (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld). Mobile 3.0 is owned by Hubert Burda Media and Georg von Holtzbrinck publishers as well as the television provider Mobiles Fernsehen Deutschland (MFD), which already broadcasts a channel in DMB standard. Just recently the European Commission declared DVB-H to be the new European standard for mobile TV.
     A cohesive licensing concept is being developed to promote the provision of services and innovative business models. In Germany a total of 15 television and four radio channels are expected, with the launch scheduled to take place in time for soccer’s UEFA European Championship (EURO 2008) next June. CeBIT exhibitors will be displaying the first mass production-ready mobile phones with built-in TV receiver.
     According to a current market study, the demand for mobile PCs with integrated broadband technology has surpassed all expectations. In a survey conducted by Pyramid Research on behalf of the GSM Association (GSMA) and Microsoft, the year 2008 will see a worldwide sales potential of around 80 million notebooks in the below-700 euro category, while manufacturers will only be able to deliver around 33 million devices at those prices.
     “The survey shows there is a substantial demand for notebooks with integrated broadband plus the right form factor and price as well as out-of-the-box connectivity, which is not yet being met,” declared GSMA CEO Rob Conway. The survey queried 12,000 computer users in 13 different countries as well as notebook, component and chip manufacturers. CeBIT 2008 will feature displays by leading manufacturers of their notebook innovations for the year in progress.
     According to prognoses by BITKOM (the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media) the navigation market will again experience solid growth this year. Experts are predicting a market volume of 825 million euros in Germany (2007: 748 million euros). Technological refinements and affordable prices are expected to be the primary market drivers.
     One new development involves analyzing movement patterns of cellphones within the mobile communications network to detect traffic jams sooner than before and alert the applicable car drivers. But these navigator ‘pilots’ may soon be experiencing increasing competition from navigation-capable GPS smart phones: According to a prognosis by ABI Research, these high-tech cellphones will make up a quarter of all navigation systems by the year 2012.