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Feature: Digitalization highlighted at CeBIT 2016

Xinhua, March 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

The world's leading trade fair showcasing IT and communications products and solutions, namely CeBIT, ended on Friday with digitalization in the spotlight.

The CeBIT 2016 kicked off on Monday and featured a great variety of examples of digitalization.

Speaking of the urgency of digitalization for the business sector on Tuesday, Oliver Frese, the Deutsche Messe Managing Board member in charge of CeBIT, said companies in all sectors of the economy need to act right now and lay the right groundwork by digitalizing their production and supply chains.

Marius Felzmann, senior Vice President CeBIT of Deutsche Messe AG, said on Tuesday that the CeBIT 2016 would made digitalization more tangible than ever before. Over 400 application examples of digitalization and the Internet of Things were displayed at the trade fair.

At the CeBIT Switzerland Summit on Monday, most of the speakers agreed that Europe might have lost the first half of digitalization in competition against other countries, but there are chances to win the race of digitalization.

Germany's digital association Bitkom President Thorsten Dirks said: "We must work hard to win the second half."

Also on Monday here, Economy Minister of Germany Sigmar Gabriel proposed to invest up to 100 billion euros (about 113 billion U.S. dollars) to build a gigabit fiber-optic network as part of his plan to strengthen the digital infrastructure in the country.

"Digitalization is the topic of our time. And one important thing about digitalization is that a lot of people are still afraid of what's to come. Our industry is working hard on convincing them," Rainer Knirsch, a spokesman at Deutsche Telekom told Xinhua in an interview.

"And the core message is digitalization is something we can't ignore and we must not leave the people behind," he added.

Commenting on CeBIT 2016, Knirsch said this CeBIT showed how the industry was already in the midst of digitalization, citing drones and driverless cars.

"It is all about digital economy. We SAP fully support the digitalization of the economy," said Hilmar Schepp, a spokesman at SAP, told Xinhua.

At the SAP booth, a screen was displaying live data of visitors. Schepp explained that the company had set up cameras and sensors on the roof of the exhibition hall to detect the number of people at the SAP booth and their movements.

With regard to digitalization, Schepp said, "I guess everything is coming together now. You have the hardware ability and the software ability."

Some 3,300 exhibitors from 70 countries and regions presented their innovations and business models in a wide array of theme clusters, conferences and forums at CeBIT 2016. Endit