We may never see a proper autopsy but the world's largest IT show is no more-- CEBIT is shut down despite what seemed like almost obligatory support from the German IT industry.
Sure, parts of CEBIT might now be merged into Deutsche Messe's biggest success, HANNOVER MESSE. After all, CeBIT emerged as a full event from its start as a specialized exhibition area within Hannover Messe.
But there was far more than industrial IT in CEBIT 2018. Now there will be a vacuum and, we predict, other organizations will try to fill this void.
Some people will look at the history of other big IT shows and suggest it was a natural death, the end of an era. Supporters of this theory can point to the advent of the internet and the impact of digital marketing. Clearly it is the story that Deutsche Messe, organizers of all the Hannover fairs, would prefer.
Others will point to murder or "a death by a thousand cuts" as smaller, more targeted events captured certain vertical markets and demographic groups. Two of many examples include: DISTREE took the IT distribution business while MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS (MWC) stole the mobile telecom industry. Let's not forget as IT vendors grew up, the big ones launched their own proprietary events. And then big distributors, shunned by CEBIT during its most successful years, created their own annual dealer and reseller events.
And some observers will point to suicide by management...CeBIT was often labelled the "The Show We Love to Hate." (Read this nasty review.) The organizers throughout the CEBIT years (not just the current administration which closed CEBIT) were called arrogant and sometimes publicly denounced for lacking industry understanding. Examples over the years include the uproar from throwing out several hundred office suppliers to make room for dot.coms, the discouraging of distributors from aggregating vendor participation, the loss of the mobile phone industry after Telecom Geneva closed and MWC stepped in, the dispute with Microsoft over the showing of XBox, the debacle known as CeBIT HOME, their rejection of conference & content in the 90s as a distraction to the trade show exhibitors, the revert to business-only in 2014, and more...
The great international attraction of CEBIT was undermined by management's conviction that it was a German+ show (designed for Germany but if other countries wished to participate that was a plus) and not really intended to fill a global role. Yet, when that global role faded, efforts were made--too late-- to emphasize CEBIT's global role because its global reputation actually supported CEBIT's strength and role in the German market.
Many of us were convinced the last "bit" standing of CEBIT would be the RESELLER area but management messed with that formula, too. Management never fully understood the core of CEBIT were the IT distribution channels: that misunderstanding was evident the moment they signed away the reseller area to one national German publisher. In fairness, the German publisher did an excellent job of representing the German channel business (yet that only alienated the once huge international channel. Think about it: Why would a manufacturer exhibit if his/her German distributor was already representing the product? Why would an international reseller attend if German distributors were representing the products instead of the manufacturer?)
Years of sliding down from the CEBIT peak (during the dot-com days) inspired so many experts to predict CEBIT's demise. Now they will claim they were correct but CEBIT lasted far beyond the 2003 of COMDEX. CEBIT did survive the worst and still had 2000 exhibitors and 400,000 visitors. While some pundits preferred to focus on the decline in exhibitors from a peak of 8000+, CEBIT survived as Europe's largest IT event and had more than a decade to stabilize that success.
During these years (after shows like America's COMDEX closed), CEBIT struggled with its positioning. It failed to change into a more relevant (the transition to services) and a more pleasant show (the attraction of the Munich Beer Hall faded after the first 10 years). And IFA BERLIN drew away the consumer IT businesss due to CEBIT's constant debate about B2B versus B2C.
Then CEBIT gambled their house of hardware & software on moving to June (better weather) and attracting millenials, digital nomads and web industry. It was a Waterloo of marketng... stressing the "new CEBIT" and asking tens of thousands of happy customers to "Forget everything you know about CeBIT." And CeBIT heroically became CEBIT in spelling. Whoever decided a Ferris Wheel would add the proper atmosphere to an event where IBM channel partners attend in suits to discuss Watson IoT and cloud, missed the point--and angered the true base.
Instead of creating the new event for digital transformation that they hoped for, it simply was the final straw for many once loyal exhibitors and attendees. According to Handelsblatt, CEBIT lost three anchor sponsors — IBM, Salesforce and Huawei — for the coming year, and three other anchor sponsors — Volkswagen, SAP and Vodafone — were drastically scaling back. It's no accident that all six companies are the type where their business parners would have little interest in Ferris Wheels. Only a fraction of past exhibitors had booked space for 2019, and Deutsche Messe was facing "a loss of at least €5 million."
Was it murder, suicide or natural causes? Maybe all three contributed to this abrupt demise. Some of us, those fortunate enough to be at CeBIT through the 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s, will mourn the loss and remember some good times. CEBIT was never an easy show and CEBIT veterans wore their fortitude proudly.
We'll leave you with links to two editorials that captured the flavor of CEBIT during its struggle of the last decade.
EDITORS NOTE: The author first attended CEBIT as an exhibitor when CEBIT was still part of the Hannover Messe. As CEBIT separated into its own event, the author worked with Hannover Fairs USA to create a bilingual guide to the USA Pavilion at CEBIT. The US participation grew to a record of more than 700 exhibitors. The author also founded the official CeBIT NEWS DAILY, the well-known English-language newspaper of CEBIT which was later taken in-house by Hannover Fairs USA (and eventually discontinued). More than 6 months of his life was spent at CEBIT shows over the years. He will miss CEBIT as a European industry platform and can say that he made many important international business contacts at every event.
Go The Munich Hall Theory of CeBIT Goes Down
Go CEBIT Closes, the Official PR Release
