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CeBIT 2005 coverage: general impressions from the show March 12, 2005 [General] | By Edward J. R. Contrary to 3GSM World Congress 2005, that is extremely international, the CeBIT 2005 trade show is to a big extend directed at German market. This is not an opinion but a fact as you will be able to realize further in this news item. As we will show in subsequent news items, the only real hit at CeBIT 2005 (from the point of view of Windows Mobile) was Samsung, that was showing working (not just dummies made of plastic and plastic only) phones - new models powered by Windows Mobile magneto and by 2003 Second Edition. We have also noticed various other hints that Windows Mobile codename Magneto will be released this summer - i.e. sooner that many people think! We have also spotted other interesting bits like first photos of T-Mobile SDA II music (different keypad, megapixel camera and QVGA display): 
... but first, before we will elaborate further, in next news items, about Windows Mobile novelties from CeBIT 2005, let's take a look at CeBIT in general: CeBIT 2005 took place in the same location as always: in Hannover city, that is located more or less in the centre of Germany - a country in Central Europe. Most of visitors were Germans and the biggest groups of foreign visitors that we spotted were Italians and Russians. Nonetheless CeBIT is being considered as the biggest Information Technology and Communications trade show in the world - due to sheer number of exhibitors - in total : more than 7000, and from Taiwan alone: over 700. While Asian companies treat CeBIT as a gateway to Western Civilization and a way to find buyers in EU and USA for their cunning products, the situation with Western corporations and companies is different: they treat CeBIT just as a local German event and usually sent to CeBIT only low-level local German representatives (more about it below). Contrary to UK, where pre-paid kits with 3G phones are already available for a long time, in Germany first pre-paid kits (card + cell phone) for 3G will be available in 2nd half of summer 2005 (i.e. around September 2005) - i.e. very late. It is therefore clear that 3G was not yet the hottest topic of CeBIT - a predominantly German trade show. It seemed to us that the hottest topic of CeBIT were mobile music downloads and phones equipped with built-in music players. In fact most (German of course) operators presented at CeBIT some extensions of their offerings with respect to mobile music downloads. Of course 3G phones were also presented by operators and manufacturers, however there was no "wow effect" - just presentations of video telephony, data cards (still no progress! still no HSDPA [fast UMTS], still just 384 kbps) and presentations of watching TV through 3G/UMTS phones. Clearly videotelephony is not appealing to consumers and watching TV on a tiny display has nothing to do with fun (considering that most people have nowadays brilliant LCD or plasma TV sets at home) - although Vodafone Germany already offers several TV channels over 3G/UMTS... Since Siemens is a German company, CeBIT is very important for them. So important that they even bribed some Gadget bloggers (paid for flights and hotels in return for frequent reporting about Siemens - one of such bribe receivers was Gizmodo). So important that despite gloomy situation in mobile phone business of Siemens (big losses), Siemens was trying to evoke a feeling of a party among potential customers: 
Very symptomatic for CeBIT 2005 was the fact that Microsoft was giving all presentations exclusively in German language: 
Interestingly the famous "2 mobile tables of Microsoft at CeBIT" this time were filled mostly by Tablet PC computers, the Windows Mobile devices being merely an unimportant (or less important) addition: 
The German character of the CeBIT was also underlined by the fact, that neither Handango nor motricity (owners of Smartphone.net and PocketGear.com) were present at Microsoft's stand - as it is common at international and American trade shows and conferences. Instead of Handango and motricity there was Pocketland.de present - a local German online software shop, that is selling mostly German software and it doesn't have all software that can be found in above mentioned American shops - we have tested it by giving random software title for Pocket PC and it was not available in their shop! However the guy standing at the stand of Pocketland.de was very nice and popped-in his SD card into our Pocket PC phone and gave us (by copying from his SD card to main memory) a map of Hannover program for free: 
From the point of view of people living in Germany Pocketland.de offers some advantages as offering software in German language and having possibility to pay for software by direct debit from German banks (without credit card). Still however they don't offer payments ove PayPal. Another sign, that CeBIT is just a local German show was presence of handit.de - local German online shop at Microsoft's stand: 
Stephan Schmidt, who is one of German MVPs in Windows Mobile area (he got MVP title for running smartphone-web.com website), works for handit.de and was present at this stand at CeBIT. Despite the fact that handit.de is just one of several online shops with Windows Mobile hardware in Germany, handit.de gets very special treatment from Microsoft and they always (we have seen them for the last 4 years) can have their stand at CeBIT at Microsoft's big stand. All in all handit.de is the leading German shop with Windows Mobile hardware, however it is not the cheapest and of course it cannot sell such big volumes of devices as mobile operators (in American English: "carriers") can - no online shop can. Another funny snippet from CeBIT 2005 were "gas stations for mobile phones": 
... that were offered by T-Mobile in many places and worked in this way that you "park" your phone in a closed compartment, then the phone is charging, you are getting a special token and the compartment is closed. After some time you come back with your token and you get your phone back but filled up with power and battery life of your mobile phone is thus extended! Since our both Windows Mobile devices support charging over mini-USB, we have used this compartment: 
At the following image you can see a queue to customer service point of Sony Ericsson: 
... and in fact there were many such points all ove the CeBIT - points mostly populated by German speaking employees who were helping German customers with their issues... so CeBIT was to a big extend also about trying to maintain exisitng customers and not only an attempt to woo new customers with novel products and services. One of our favorite novelties (not really related to Windows Mobile and not really very novel) was that IP phone from German provider of voice over IP - freenet.de: 
.. which is a tiny (!) GSM phone in clam shell design with voice over Bluetooth feature: one needs to buy special 'home station' (kind of ADSL router combined with Wi-Fi access point and combined with Bluetooth server for Voice over IP) and then you can have "cellular / wireless convergence for poor people" (without Wi-Fi - just over Bluetooth). On second thought we realized that this "Bluetooth IP phone" feature could be also implemented by additional software in various smartphones and PDA phones. We must admit however that apart from corporations that were wooing for end users, rather than enterprises, there were also many companies present at CeBIT that were offering solutions and products for corporations only. One example of such company is "Strawberry" (headquarted in Japan but division of this company from Finland was present at CeBIT 2005). Interestingly this company is specialized in making hinges for mobile phones - they hold patents for hinges and they are selling hinges for big corporations like Sony Ericsson and other major vendors: 
On picture above you can observe models of hinges that Strawberry company is offering to mobile phone vendors (from left to right): swivel design (like in some Sony Ericsson phones), slide-out keypad deign, clam shell design (also known as flip phone) and clam shell design with rotating screen. We have noticed that they don't offer "dual hinge" as known from Motorola MPx Pocket PC phone, but the Japanese guy from Strawberry company mentioned that in fact "dual hing" are just 2 hinges, so nothing special and they offer it but don't present at this trade show. * * * * * Please observe a couple of subsequent news items with "CeBIT 2005 coverage" in title, where we will report in more details about some upcoming phones - mainly in Widows Mobile area. CeBIT 2005 was a massive event, however in our area of interest: Windows Mobile phones - there was not so much new to rejoice. Was CeBIT 2005 worth visisiting? Certainly yes!  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later)
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