CeBIT 2009

This is a log about my trip to Hannover for visiting the CeBIT 2009 expo that’s claimed to be the world’s largest computer expo. I’ve been wanting to visit a CeBIT expo since last year, but I moved to Trento already when the expo took place last year. So I decided to visit this expo this year since I’ve moved back to Germany. But when I asked several friends of mine, nobody seemed to be interested in joining me (well, I don’t have many friends yet in Aachen). Then I asked an EuMI student from Indonesia, Citra, who lived in Aachen if she would visit the expo. And she said she would. So I asked if it’s possible for me to join her. She replied me positively, very positively as I was given a free pass (ticket) for the expo Thanks to Citra and her friends

CeBIT 2009 – The ticket and my visitor ID

So we were 5, we took the schönes-wochenende-ticket (weekend regional train ticket valid throughout Germany) which cost for € 37 for max 5 persons. We departed from Aachen Westbahnhof to several intermediate stations (which I can’t remember) before reaching Hannover. The train departed at 02:59!!! So I went by foot to Aachen Westbahnhof from my flat. It took around 30 minutes.

CeBIT 2009 – My travel friends (Mariana, Divya, Alex, Citra)

We arrived at Hannover hauptbahnhof around 7 a.m., grapped some coffee, then took the S-bahn to the expo spot. The expo’s entrance gate was not far from the S-bahn terminal, but to enter we had to show our tickets which we had registered beforehand through the CeBIT’s website. Then they printed our visitor IDs.

CeBIT 2009 – Me, on the way to the entrance gate

The expo ground consists of 26 huge halls that we tried our best to traverse through all of them but couldn’t manage to visit every stand. At least not me We started from hall 13 as shown in the expo map. It was the telecommunication area.

CeBIT 2009 – The expo’s ground map

There were many big companies and I can’t remember all their details. But as far as I remember, Cisco Systems, SAP, Microsoft, IBM were there. IBM showed some demos about the so-called cloud computing, but as it was so crowded, I didn’t really get into it. And of course Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft was there, and surprisingly I met Ferry, an employee of the Fraunhofer FIT, who is also an Indonesian I met him before last year when I did my lab work at Fraunhofer FIT.

CeBIT 2009 – IBM’s cloud computing technology demo

CeBIT 2009 – The new way of working (viruses)?

CeBIT 2009 – Want your business to be one of the best-runnings? Buy SAP products!

And as the trend goes green on everything, the IT world doesn’t want to be left behind. Well, my laptop’s colour is not green (yet) There was also the Green IT World section in the expo, showing some concepts of green computing etc. I know very little on this.

CeBIT 2009 – The green IT World

And another surprises came from 2 sets of stands from 2 specific countries: Singapore and Malaysia. Unfortunately no Indonesia stand to be found there

CeBIT 2009 – Malaysia’s stands

CeBIT 2009 – Singapore’s stands

Several antivirus companies were there also in the Security World’s hall such as McAffee, Symantec, Kaspersky, and G-Data. I also came accross a cool tactile technology demo and a cool advert: Live in Los Angeles, study in Berlin, research in Alaska, and love in Taipeh. Cool…

CeBIT 2009 – A cool tactile technology demo

CeBIT 2009 – A cool advert

And inside Hall 22, there’s the Intel Gaming Hall packed with youths witnessing some gaming tournaments. I watched the SK Gaming Asia team beating its opponent by 2-0 in the World of Warcraft tournament, but then I got bored and moved on to the next hall.

CeBIT 2009 – The Intel Gaming Hall

After getting bored and tired, we decided to go back to Aachen around 4 p.m. I didn’t bring cool souvenirs except a pen, a mouse pad, and a book on Storage Basics. Had I been more proactive, I might have got the laptop bag just like Alex did. Yes, the Fujitsu-Siemens stand threw many laptop bags to the crowd, but I wasn’t tall enough to catch one

CeBIT 2009 – My take-away souvenirs

Finally I’d like to thank my travel friends to Hannover for the wonderful time visiting the CeBIT 2009 expo. I hope I’ll have the chance to see other CeBIT expos later on.

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