The world's biggest high-tech fair opens its doors on March 15 showcasing the must-have computer, telecommunications and consumer electronics products of the future.
This year's CeBIT, running to March 21 in the northern German City of Hanover, has unfurled the banner "Join the vision" and drawn more than 6,000 exhibitors from 77 countries.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel kicked off the event late on March 14, with a call for information technology and telecommunications firms to continue leading the way in Europe's biggest economy. "Your sector should remain the engine of innovation for Germany," she said.
Merkel was joined by Patricia Russo, chief executive of French-US telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent, and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Naryshkin, whose country is the fair's guest of honour this year.
Russo said the communications market was being driven by insatiable consumer demand for all-in-one features. "(Users) want the ability to watch their favourite TV programme, send instant messages to their friends about the show's latest plot twist and answer a call from their daughter when she needs to be picked up from basketball practice - all at the same time, and on the same device of their choosing," she said.
The European Information Technology Observatory has forecast a 2.9-percent boost in industry turnover to 668 billion euros (883 billion dollars) this year, while the global market weighs in at about 2.6 trillion dollars. Russia ranks fourth among exhibitors at the fair with 150 represented, a sign of its dramatically growing stature in the world's high-tech market.
Naryshkin said his country aimed to exploit its strengths in communications, electronic banking and digital equipment as a counterweight to its heavy reliance on its vast energy resources.
"Russia is not satisfied with a situation in which the state budget is dependent on the development of prices for oil and gas on the world market," he said.
"The Russian economy is now looking to high-tech sectors, to the information technology and telecommunications industry, to the structures of the economy in the 21st century, to the knowledge economy."
This year's CeBIT is to throw the spotlight on new advances in phoning on the Internet, mobile high-speed online connections, next-generation DVD players and handheld navigators.
Industry watchers were also looking out for how Microsoft's new operating system, Windows Vista, fares at the sector's biggest gathering.
Television services and roaming charges on mobile phones are two other hot topics as 18 ministers for telecommunications in the European Union gather Thursday on the sidelines of the fair to hammer out new policy guidelines.
And the event would not be the CeBIT without its parade of quirky gadgets and innovations that might, or might not, conquer the world.
Techies were eagerly awaiting traditional German lederhosen with a built-in cellular phone, a BMW sports car that can talk and listen, a mobile phone that doubles as a pillow and a bathroom mirror that can give current stock quotes. Organisers hope the mix of serious business and visionary fun will stem a rash of cancellations at the CeBIT, short for Centre for Office and Information Technology, since the Internet bubble burst six years ago. Compared to the record year 2001, attendance has fallen by about half and exhibition space has shrunk by a third.
The CeBIT now plans an overhaul in 2008, shaving a day off the schedule and reorganising the show space so that the professionals will not have to fight their way through the crowds of consumers.
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