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CeBIT (Centrum der Büro- und Informationstechnik; German for "Centre of Office and Information technology") is the world's largest computer expo. It is held each spring on the fairground in Hanover, Germany, and is a barometer of the state of the art in information technology. With an exhibition area of roughly 450,000 m² (~ 5 million ft²) and up to 700,000 visitors, it is larger than COMPUTEX and the no-longer held COMDEX. The 2006 CeBIT expo, with an attendance of roughly 430,000, was held from 9 March to 15 March, 2006. It had more than 6,200 exhibitors from around 70 countries all over the world. The 2007 expo dates are 15 March to 21 March.

Contents 1 Historical overview[1] 1.1 Trivia 2 Worldwide CeBIT shows 3 References 4 External links

CeBIT was traditionally the computing part of the Hannover Fair, a big industry trade show held every year. It was first established in 1970, with the opening of the Hanover fairground's new Hall 1, then the largest exhibition hall in the world. However, in the 1980s the information technology and telecommunications part was straining the resources of the industry fair so much that it was given a separate trade show starting 1986, held four weeks earlier than the main Hanover Fair.

As CeBIT continued to grow quickly and was becoming too big on its own, it was decided to concentrate on the professional market, while the home and entertainment market was given a separate show, CeBIT Home, during summer, planned to be biennial. However, after being held twice (in 1996 and 1998), the 2000 CeBIT Home (supposed to be held in Leipzig due to the Expo 2000 being held at the time in Hanover) was cancelled and the project was abandoned.

• 17 March 1986 – German computing pioneer Heinz Nixdorf dies at CeBIT
• 1987 – The year's CeBIT earns the nickname SchneeBIT due to massive snowfall during the show
• 1987 – Nokia presents first GSM mobile phone
• 1995 – Keynote speech held by Bill Gates

Since 1999 the CeBIT sponsor Deutsche Messe AG ("German Trade Show, Ltd.") has organized trade shows outside of Germany bearing the CeBIT name:

• CeBIT asia, in Shanghai, China
• CeBIT australia, in Sydney
• CeBIT eurasia Bilişim, in Istanbul, Turkey

CeBIT America/USA was held in 2003 and 2004, but subsequently cancelled in 2005.

1. ^ 20 Jahre Centrum für "B" und "IT": Die CeBIT hat Geburtstag (German) – By Detlef Borchers, heise online, 8 March 2006

General:

• CeBIT official website: "The leading business event for the digital world"
• The history of CeBIT
• Overview of worldwide CeBIT events

Media:

• CeBIT 2005 video coverage
• CeBIT 2006 video coverage – In HDTV format

Coordinates: 52°19′37″N, 9°48′33″E