CeBIT: No escaping the C-word as the Hanover trade show returns to full strength

CeBIT, one of the biggest technology shows in the world, is busier than it's been in years – well that's the anecdotal evidence, anyway. Siemens marketing manager Boris Schwager is just one of several attendees who commented on this yesterday. He explained that during the previous two shows, local hotels had been vying for delegate custom in radio and other advertisements posted around the event.

This year, all hotels in Hanover, the German city where the event is held every March, are full. As a result, I am having to stay 60km from the conference centre (joy!).

CeBIT's country partner this year is Turkey, and the event is held in such high esteem by both governments that it was opened by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Would our David Cameron attend a similar event in the UK? I have my doubts, but he should. High-calibre endorsement of this sort shows that the government is serious about supporting the technology industry.

The show partnership runs alongside a wider country partnership signed by TUBISAD, the Turkish Informatics Industry Association, and BITCOM, the equivalent German industry body.

The benefits of the partnership for Turkey are clear: the geographical position of Germany means it acts as a gateway to other European markets. While Germany, as the most weighty political and economic player in the EU, stands to benefit from a stable and developed market in Turkey, which hopes to become an EU member, possibly as early as 2013.

The international theme of the show was in evidence elsewhere too, with a series of conferences under the header "A Flat World Forum", with speakers from "New Tunisia", Bulgaria, Brazil, Vietnam, Italy, India, Romania the Ukraine and of course Turkey. There is also a US trade area.

The other big theme is unsurprisingly the cloud, with every event or stand I have attended so far emphasising its importance.

For example, SAP is pushing its SaaS solution Business By Design – with focus now on generating a developer ecosystem – while Siemens talked up the work it has done to create private clouds for the likes of Coca-Cola and Commerzbank.

Meanwhile, a briefing with Chinese company Huawei yesterday revealed that the company sees cloud computing as being as important an evolution in computing as that from the mainframe to PCs.

Huawei, traditionally a telecoms company, has reorganised its business into four new groups – telecoms, enterprise, consumer and other business – as a result of "cloud computing and ICT convergence and the opportunities they afford the company", according to one marketing manager.

The show itself has been reorganised into four areas: professional – looking at ID, security, networks and infrastructure; life – a high-tech area with smart home and sports and health gadgets; lab – a series of presentations looking at research and development; and finally gov – a public sector and telehealth park.

So, with all 27 halls jammed full of stands, and at least four conferences running concurrently, I'd better get back to the action.

Nicola Brittain is News and Analysis Editor at Computing Magazine