CeBit aims to entice consumers

By Nicola Leske

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Europe's biggest technology fair CeBit aims to entice cash-conscious business customers with software aimed at coping with the recession while itself continuing to experience a haemorrhage of trade-exhibitors.

Launched in 1986 in the northern German city of Hanover, CeBit has lost ground both to the more gadget-oriented Berlin rival IFA - a summer fair that has increasingly drawn consumers -- and to its U.S. competitor CES, whose annual show has the advantage of being two months earlier.

Nevertheless, Deutsche Messe, which organises CeBit and other German trade fairs, said it expected to draw some 495,000 visitors to this week's technology trade exhibition, despite a 25 percent drop in vendors to a level last seen in 1990.

"Given the depth of the world economic crisis, this number of 4,300 (exhibitors) represents a success," said Ernst Raue, a Deutsche Messe managing board member.

CeBit can even boast of Hollywood glitter this year, since California's official partnership means the U.S. state's Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, will travel to Hanover to officially open the fair on Monday night with German chancellor Angela Merkel.

"The high-tech sector is still pretty well positioned compared with other industries," said Bernd Rohledder, managing director of IT industry association Bitkom.

WEBCIETY AND GREEN TECH

An important trend this year will be what organisers call Webciety, short for WorldWideWeb society, taking account of the central role the Internet is now taking in social, economic and political spheres through blogs, social networks and Web-based software.