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CeBIT: Europe's biggest IT show opens

CeBIT 2008 kicks off this week in Hanover, Germany, and will include new exhibitions around green technology
Written by Tom Espiner, Contributor

Europe's biggest IT trade show, CeBIT, will open its doors to visitors on Tuesday. The huge campus will attract as many as 400,000 visitors in a four-day technology exposition.

One of the major themes of the show will be how to make IT more environmentally friendly, with the cost efficiencies this brings. Sun will be attempting to set up and run a solar-powered data centre, while one entire warehouse-sized hall will be devoted to green IT.

On the mobile side, ZDNet.co.uk will be looking at how femtocells — mini base stations for the home or small office — could change the way in which mobile networks are deployed by operators. ZDNet.co.uk will also be keeping an ear open for new announcements in the rapid evolution of mobile Linux, and examining how mobile WiMax could help businesses if it gets off the ground in the UK.

The amount of IT Security technologies on show will be scaled down this year, being combined with human-resource management companies in one of the 800-square-metre halls. Further security topics will include biometrics, RFID tagging and smartcard technologies, in line with the current UK government focus on identity cards for citizens and border control.

Russian security vendor Kaspersky will comment on expected major security trends for the coming year. However, many UK and US security and IT companies are conspicuous by their absence, or lack of announcements. Symantec will not have a presence at the 2008 show, unlike last year, which saw a keynote by chief executive John Thompson. McAfee has no major security announcements at CeBIT, and neither has Sophos.

Dell has no major announcements on the enterprise side, and will focus mainly on consumer technology.

Also at CeBIT this year, the impact on IT consultancy of any possible global economic downturn will be examined by analyst firm Gartner as part of the exhibition's conference programme.

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