May 15, 2006

CeBIT 2006 – voices from prominent exhibitors

“The atmosphere at CeBIT was upbeat too, marked by a clear willingness to invest in new systems and IT services. Increased business confidence led many of our visitors to place orders while CeBIT was still on. The focus of visitors' interest at our stand was on services and products to modernize process organization and IT structures in their offices and companies. One of the key themes involved optimizing the provision of services with a view to minimizing information / documentation dispatch and idle times and accelerating input and processing operations,” said Prof. Dieter Kempf, CEO of IT service provider DATEV eG. “We are delighted with the outcome of CeBIT. The fact that all document management providers had been brought together in Hall 1 was warmly received by visitors. Together with Deutsche Messe AG, we will be expanding this sector in the years ahead and offering substantial support,” said Henner von der Banck, Managing Director of VOI.

“We are extremely satisfied with the level of interest shown by visitors to our stand. Visitor numbers, which rose last year, bucking the trend, saw further increases. And feedback from our visitors showed they were impressed by our presentation, finding our stand innovative and fresh. All in all, we can look back on a highly successful show that far exceeded our expectations,” said Achim Berg, Divisional Manager, Marketing and Sales at T-Com.

“CeBIT 2006 was a great success for the BMW Group and, as in previous years, an excellent platform to nurture direct contact with end customers and business partners. There is no better place for us to target our presentation of telematics and online services from BMW ConnectedDrive to an interested audience,” stated Dr. Eckhard Steinmeier, Manager of BMW ConnectedDrive.

“Our customers came in droves to our stand, demonstrating widespread interest in our innovations for Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft TV, and Windows Mobile. We can therefore leave CeBIT 2006 feeling very optimistic,” said Jurgen Gallmann, General Manager of Microsoft Deutschland GmbH.

“SAP is delighted with the outcome of the 21 st CeBIT. Visitor numbers at our stand far exceeded last year's figures. SAP's focus on SME customers was welcomed by visitors. It established first-rate contacts and, what's more, even reached out to new audiences,” said Susanne Kapfer, Public Relations Manager, at SAP Deutschland AG & Co. KG.

“CeBIT 2006 has so far completely fulfilled our expectations. Our highly popular color-capable multifunctional systems and AQUOS LCD TVs, in such high demand so close to the soccer World Cup, meant we were able to impress our existing resellers with completely new line-ups and gain new ones,” said Frank Bolten, Managing Director of Sharp Electronics Germany/Austria.

“CeBIT 2006 is yet another success story for TomTom. Our customers and partners and the media were impressed and excited by the new TomTom product range. In their view, we have raised the bar for vehicle navigation. We already have fantastic media coverage. Altogether, reaction to the new TomTom GO series and our new TomTom WORK division has been overwhelming,” concludes Alexander Ribbink, TomTom COO.

“This was the first appearance at CeBIT by BenQ Mobile and the new BenQ-Siemens brand. We are amazed and naturally delighted at the extremely positive response from end customers, network operators, and specialty retailers at our stand to the products on show,” says Florian Gersbach, Strategy & Communications at BenQ Mobile GmbH & Co. OHG.

“Once again, this year's CeBIT provided us with a platform to present our products and solutions to an international audience, meet customers and partners and win new ones. The number of customer contacts rose by some 20% on last year,” explained Barbara Schadler, Chief Marketing Officer at Fujitsu Siemens Computers.

“At this year's CeBIT, Nokia too was focused on convergence. We aimed to convey this to visitors through our products and solutions, offering them a hands-on experience. The positive feedback at the fair proves we took the right approach and that customers enjoyed seeing and trying out equipment and applications. As in previous years, our industrial partners, network operators, and retailers were able to check out new marketing concepts for themselves. This also met with a very favorable reception. All in all, CeBIT 2006 marks a great start to the spring for us,” says Karsten Schilly, Managing Director, Customer Market Operations at Nokia GmbH.

orbert Muller, CEO of Rittal GmbH & Co. KG, sees a clear upward trend in Germany 's overall economic development. In his view, this was reflected at the fair. “Clearly, investment in IT and IT infrastructure has been rather cautious in the last few years. There is significant potential in this area and that was apparent at CeBIT 2006,” says Muller.