Tim Howell’s Weblog

Numerous reasons for the lack of postings lately, so I won’t go into detail. The main reason was a simple one: I was away at CeBIT. Rod and I made the journey to Hannover in early March, and spent a week at this show, the world’s largest for ICT. Rod has posted several time about what was there, and I won’t attempt to republish what is old news, suffice to say a few less time-critical points:

• IT and the technology industry is exciting at the moment. CeBIT brought together devices of all shapes and sizes, and while success may elude many of them, the range of technology for both consumer and business use was exhilarating.
• Hardware is innovating faster than software. Perhaps this shouldn’t be a surprise, but I was surprised. Not only were there devices of all shapes and sizes, there were Windows devices of all shapes and sizes. What was lacking was decent software to drive these, despite the comparatively low cost of development (at least compared to developing a hardware device). Conversely, the opportunity for software developers is significant, and the field for innovative applications looks wide open.
• HDTV is real - literally and figuratively. While I had read about HDTV and its promise, to view HDTV in action was amazing. I’m not a DVD or video nut, but could see the dramatic improvements delivered by this new technology.