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Peeking into 10 stalls at CeBIT 2011: pics

The CeBIT 2011 action is over now, with stalls being dismantled in front of the ZDNet Australia team's eyes last night. But while it was alive, it was bustling and full of tech. Take a look at some of the stalls we visited.
By Suzanne Tindal, Contributor
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1 of 11 Suzanne Tindal/ZDNET

(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet Australia)

The Forest Fire Finder system aims to reduce the time between a fire being started and authorities receiving an alert. The idea is that the longer the fire goes undiscovered, the bigger it gets, until uncontrollable situations develop, such as the Victorian fires.

The system monitors fires up to 15km away. It carries out a chemical analysis of the atmosphere by looking at the colours of the sky and building a spectro graphic. Sky containing smoke will be different to clear sky. Also, different types of smoke absorb light differently, meaning that the spectro graphic will be different, so that the system can filter out false alarms.

The system will only have a false alarm about every five days, according to the company, which it claims is better than the competition — the competition sees false alarms occur every single day. The system also takes information from temperature, humidity, wind direction and speed, atmospheric pressure and rainfall atmospheric sensors.

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TangoTec hopes to make copper wiring in the home speedier, a boon for those with fibre to their door but not in their house. It uses all of the wires, connecting them up to an Ethernet adaptor, which uses them to make a speedy connection to all devices.

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3 of 11 Suzanne Tindal/ZDNET

(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet Australia)

SAF Australia provides microwave radio products for wide area networks in areas where it would be too costly to build out networks. The receivers can be placed up to 50km apart, and are power efficient, which, in areas where alternate power sources such as solar cells are necessary, can mean a cost saving. The equipment is capable of providing 366Mbps and can be stacked to increase the figure. Resources companies make up much of the customer base. Fortescue Metals, Ballina Council and Hunter Water are some of the companies that have implemented the product.

This is the back of one of the receivers.

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4 of 11 Suzanne Tindal/ZDNET

(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet Australia)

Robert May, director of technology development, SISS business systems, stands in front of the stand (left) for Uglii, a business directory system with a spatial search element. The system started trialling in Australia three to four months ago, and now has between 70,000 and 80,000 businesses registered. It's now gone live globally.

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5 of 11 Suzanne Tindal/ZDNET

(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet Australia)

We didn't stop at this stand, but it looked pretty interesting — if a little odd. It says that it's a smart podium system with dual tablet monitors that "provides the control of all the equipment in the classroom".

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6 of 11 Suzanne Tindal/ZDNET

(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet Australia)

Here we have the stand of Efficient Data Communications with senior business development manager Elie Nasri and CEO Andrew Lowy. They said that the company is one of eight certified to provide Cisco Unified Computing Systems in Australia — and the first tier two.

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7 of 11 Suzanne Tindal/ZDNET

(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet Australia)

The next stand we stopped at was Rittal, which was showing an IT security room with thick fireproof walls. How fireproof they are depends on the thickness chosen. The company builds the rooms to spec in a factory in Miranda, with manufacture taking 12 weeks, and installation — including power etc — taking 12 weeks.

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8 of 11 Suzanne Tindal/ZDNET

(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet Australia)

Toten sells cabinets to put your kit in. We were told that this market is bigger in Australia than in the US because, while US customers would buy a lot of equipment from one manufacturer and get the cabinet with them, in Australia, companies will often buy gear from different vendors depending on price, which would require the acquisition of a cabinet.

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9 of 11 Suzanne Tindal/ZDNET

(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet Australia)

Peter McRae, Macpro managing director, stands in front of his stall. Macpro sells ERP software for smaller businesses, and has been doing so for many years. McRae told ZDNet Australia that the company is working on a web-based product, because software-as-a-service is where the market is going.

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10 of 11 Suzanne Tindal/ZDNET

(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet Australia)

At the NICTA stand, we were shown a cost decision program being developed by the research organisation, which allows the input of various cloud variables — such as when a company would predominately use a cloud infrastructure service, the number of CPUs and virtual machines, the maximum CPU load per virtual machine and the database size. After these variables have been entered, a list of cloud providers and their costs, based on the company's needs, become visible. As prices change, the program will be updated automatically.

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11 of 11 Suzanne Tindal/ZDNET

(Credit: Suzanne Tindal/ZDNet Australia)

There's one bonus stand: the Australian Retailers Association, which, despite talking loudly in the press about the dangers of online business because the government doesn't charge offshore sites GST, had a stand, too.

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