COMPUTEX 08: gearing up for biggest year yet

Last minute preparations are going on here in Taipei's brand new Nangang Exhibition Centre where an opening press conference was hosted by Walter Yeh, executive VP of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (Taitra).

Yeh said Computex is now firmly "the most important platform for ITC procurement in the world". In its 28th year, some 1725 companies are showing off their wares to an expected 200,000+ visitors, 40,000 of whom have flown in specially from overseas.

With the addition of the new Nangang hall the exhintion now occupies some 53 per cent more space than last year, Yeh said.

He said the show is expected to generate some 20 billion (US) dollars worth of business, which is certainly some figure. And there's even more to come in follow-up business, he reckoned.

According to the organisers, the main themes of the show this year are WiMax, ICT cross-over - that's convergence to you and me - new low-cost notebooks and that old oxymoron green IT. That all fits neatly into the acronym WING apparently.

Anyhow, inside the new hall, stands are being rapidly erected and paint slapped on here and there, as the geeks' best beloved booth babes go through the final rehearsals of their all-important dancing regimes. Stay tuned.