Introduction
We survived!! We survived CeBIT 98 in Hannover, the world biggest computer show. We??? Oooops what’s going on?? Well Tom didn’t go there alone. After a lot of readers told us that Tom should find some people to help him getting information on the web faster he decided to fulfill this wish. And here I am. My name is Markus and I am part of Tom’s crew.
OK back to the topic! We survived. CeBIT 98. Surviving this event is not as easy as it may sound. Especially not this year. Although I have been living in Hannover for several years and therefore know most of the shortcuts it still took me hours to get to the fairground. As you got stuck in a traffic jam no matter when you left your apartment you did not have the slightest chance to get to the show in any foreseeable time. That also means there was almost no chance to be in a meeting in the morning. Some of you may think that’s just because of the masses of visitors (670.000 officially counted) but that’s not true. All the years that I have been at CeBIT and I haven’t missed a single one so far, they had almost as much visitors but no chaos like this year.
If one finally reaches the fairground it is very hard to get a reliable answer to a question. In order to find out how a normal visitor feels I removed my press-badge sometimes and started to get some information. That was quite often impossible. Let me tell a story about this problem that really happened to me:
I went to a big company asked at the counter for information concerning IEEE1394 interface technology. I can understand that the lady at the desk could not help me directly. OK but she sent me to the storage guys. The junior sales guy also never heard about 1394 or fire wire at all. Well he is young and probably just only a trainee so he handed me over to his senior sales manager. After I explained him what I am looking for he stared at me with big eyes and asked me for his internal order number because he also never heard anything about it. As the company is involved in the development of this technology and these two guys were working in the storage section I knew how a standard visitor feels.
Cebit Continued
By the way as I showed them my press badge they just sent me to the press office, where I can probably find some information. Thank you. Very often you are just asked for a name card and receive a data sheet in exchange. In fairness I want to point out that it was mainly the big companies that showed this kind of behavior.
With that experiance the question is why should you go to Hannover? The entrance fee is 50,– DM and a night in a hotel takes you at least another 75,– DM. So again what did the 670.000 visitors do in Hannover? Well we have seen several of them paying 200,– DM just to conduct a band in the “Mьnchner Halle” for two minutes in front of 1.500 people or should I say possible customers. By the way money: Did ever anybody think about the costs related to a show like the CeBIT? Siemens for example had 1.500 employees working at CeBIT. So lets do the calculation for them: Hotel 75,– DM at least per day and person. Another 46,– DM of standard expenses as a basic plus lets say 25,– DM for Taxi or something like that. For nine days including travel time this calculation ends up at 1.97 million DM which equals about 1.1 Million US$.
This calculation does not contain the costs for booth construction, rent for exhibition space (1 square meter was like 450,– DM) or any other related costs. What would happen if all that money had have been put into the development of new products? New products In the first step I would like to say no news at all. Because most of the products you could see in Hannover have been announced long ago. IEEE1394 was not that big a topic as it has been during IFA in Berlin and Comdex in Las Vegas last autumn. There were only three groups of products that I think were hot.
The architecture beyond slot 1. This slot 2 systems are no longer only on paper. The first systems could be seen on the CeBIT and more are under development.. But not only Intel itself is working on that issue. We can expect some vendors to have a running system as soon as Intel launches that system. Under this circumstance it was interesting how the non Intel Chip manufacturer reacted as soon as you asked them about the future of Socket 7 and their strategies towards an Intel based system.
Cebit Continued
As we could have a first impression of the abilities of Power VR second Generation we found that chip real hot. Seemingly Videologic is going to fulfill all the features announced in their press release. A lot of companies are going to launch products that are based on that chip set. If they keep their promises we can expect a price war in May.
One of the companies that announced its engagement in this field is a European competitor of Creative. The French based company Guilemot. The third topic was the chipset discussion. BX Boards could be seen in a final status almost everywhere. And also the EX based boards. Pin compatible with the LX but with reduced functionality that Chip Set is dedicated to the Low End Systems in the OEM business mainly.
After all that the question is why does everybody go to Hannover if it is like that? Well the CEO of a company explained it like that: “If I have been in Hannover once and don’t show up the following year my competitors are the first to send out the rumors that I am close to bankruptcy. So my customers switch and I will find myself very soon somewhere close to bankruptcy. So I can choose whether I want to face financial problems due to the cost of that show or due to the decrease of turnover. So I can’t afford not being present.”
Tom, Alex (from Voodoo Extreme), Fredi, Larry and I have been in Hannover to meet the people we normally have met on the phone only. And we will be there next year also. As we stay in very close contact with a lot of people in R&D departements the CeBit (the biggest computer show in the world with 7.250 exhibitors) is a good chance to talk face to to face. It is always the same old story: Though we have the internet and telephone and fax it is the personal relation that counts.
If you want some closer technical information just have a look the latest page “Current State, Near Future and Recommendations in PC Hardware.”