The growing relevance of social networks to business,
RFID and green IT will be dominant themes at this year's CeBIT
event in Hanover, Germany.
According to the event organisers, the relevance of Web 2.0 and
Social Networks continues to grow for private users and
corporations, which face
both
challenges and opportunities in communicating, interacting and
co-operating with users and customers.
On Tuesday 4 March the Enterprise 2.0 Summit, which is the first
European trade conference to cover this topic in depth, will take
place. In addition, a human resources forum and e-learning forum
will focus on its impact on personnel management, processes and
training for IT departments
Interest in
RFID is increasing. One of the show highlights will be the
"Auto ID/RFID Solutions Park", where systems from the automotive,
aviation, retail, logistics, health and pharmaceuticals industries
are presented. The auto ID/RFID arena was launched in 2006 and has
seen strong growth since then.
"RFID serves many purposes such as lowering logistics costs,
fewer storage mistakes and ensuring fewer faked goods enter the
supply chain. It has wide applications," said a CeBIT
spokesman.
The spokesman said the
hype around green IT will also be a prevelant theme carried
over from last year's show as issues such as high energy costs
linked to IT use, expensive emissions rights and increasing costs
to dispense redundent equipment climb the agenda.
"There is interest in IT that allows or assists in energy saving
- climate-friendly computer control, intelligent stand-by
solutions, navigation to find shortest routes in traffic,
videoconference technology to reduce traveling - and IT equipment
that has been developed in a more energy-effective way to use less
energy and can be recycled."
Asked whether the
credit crunch will have an impact on the willingness of IT
managers to buy new hardware or software this year, the spokesman
said there have been few signals of a negative impact.
"Innovation remains crucial in a competitive market place and an
investment in technology remains a logical consequence. Not only is
the IT industry well structured for this challenge, it will help
drive the global economy forward."