(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

Before attendees stormed the exhibition floor, it was quiet, with barely a breath of air to shift the banners.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

NBN Co rolled into CeBIT with its National Broadband Network (NBN) truck, complete with faux lawn.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

Lenovo, on the other hand, attempted to set the world record for number of laptops on a motorcycle.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

Alienware is back in town with its showcase caravan, and, yes, that is Diablo III on the laptop in the foreground.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

Dell's stand stretched two stories up, and featured its own coffee cart below its giant, revolving logo.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

Samsung attempted to tuck its surface table into a corner, but that proved to be slightly impossible, due to the company's choice of stand.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

Samsung had picked a giant dome in which to show off its latest technologies, with a focus on cloud.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

AAPT took a different approach, inviting guests to sit inside to get out of the "rain".

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

CSIRO tried to draw visitors to its stand with its clean, white lines and helpful scientists ready to explain concepts.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

NICTA just resorted to a big, purple arrow.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

CSIRO was running through demonstrations of its latest projects, including how tech support can be delivered remotely.

Users wear a kit, including a helmet-mounted camera, to remotely show what they're working on to a "helper" who's thousands of kilometres away.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

China Shenzhen has been a staple of CeBIT for many years now, informing prospective Australian customers of what's happening overseas.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

There's also something for those in the datacentre and cable-management space, with many bringing in their own racks, types of cables and associated cooling equipment.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

Forget surface tables; the folks at A1-Systems demonstrated multi-touch capabilities on a TV-sized device, enabling people to draw on their favourite soccer star in order to point out their foibles.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

The NSW Government had a large display to showcase how it's using geospatial information. This model of George Street, Sydney, was loaded with sensors, and plugged in to a 3D graphics engine to allow users to virtually roam around the city. The sensors keep the model up to date.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

The emergency services were at CeBIT, demonstrating what Fire and Rescue NSW is doing with its Portable Automatic Weather Station to better predict conditions wherever they go.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

The State Emergency Service (SES) also turned up, with a boat in tow.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

Huawei had a stand at the event, targeting enterprise users. It was situated relatively far from the NBN truck, on the other side of the exhibition hall.

(Credit: Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)

It was just across the path from Telstra, which is pushing for a cloud-based theme this year.