C L O S I N G R E P O R T
Berlin, 29 June 2009 – There are no signs of crisis at LinuxTag. Once again, over a period of four days, well over 10,000 visitors gathered on the Berlin Exhibition Grounds, contributing to the positive atmosphere at the trade fair and conference. The general tenor of the 135 exhibiting companies and projects and of around 300 speakers at the event, which ended on Saturday, was that in economically difficult times companies are increasingly questioning their traditional IT environment, and more and more often are focusing on open source alternatives. This was why talks focused on appropriate solutions at the 15th LinuxTag. Numerous open source companies made use of the opportunity offered by the event to look for qualified personnel.
As a trend it became clear that Linux is advancing into more and more areas of everyday life, as underlined by Android’s TEO mobile phone, the OpenMoko platform and a number of embedded devices such as the Texas Instruments Beagleboard.
Admins showed a strong trend towards integration of administration tools which combine monitoring, capacity planning, virtualisation and cloud computing, all of which were dwelt on in detail at the conference.
Oliver Zendel, Chairman of LinuxTag e. V.: "I was impressed by the authority shown by speakers and audiences. There were numerous overviews and also a large number of in-depth papers, for example the keynote speech by Glibc maintainer Ulrich Drepper on multicore CPUs. At Kernel Kwestioning the audience asked Linux developers interesting questions. The high standard means that LinuxTag is also recognised as an advanced training event, which was attended by more than 100 visitors.”
Jens Heithecker, Director at Messe Berlin GmbH: “Once again LinuxTag 2009 proved that Open Source and Berlin as a business venue combine to make a good team. Both stand for creativity which, as is well known, in difficult times is much in demand. Our surveys show there was a high level of international attendance and that exhibitors and visitors were very satisfied with their meetings. Following France’s successful debut we will continue the concept of a national focus.”
Comments by exhibitors on LinuxTag 2009
Jesus Ibanez Parra, Business Development Manager, Application Processors, Texas Instruments: “Besides presenting our new Beagleboard at LinuxTag, which we explained in two papers, we also wanted to meet members of the developers’ community. For Texas Instruments LinuxTag is Europe’s only Open Source event which we take part in as exhibitors, and it was worth our while again this year.“
Thomas Vermynck, Ubifrance: “We managed to attract a great deal of attention by exhibiting at France’s combined stand. The feedback from companies who took part was positive, and most intend to come back next year. In general, companies are interested in finding out even more about the German market. French exhibitors are keen to become even more involved in next year’s programme of papers at LinuxTag.“
Elmar Geese, Managing Director, tarent Gesellschaft für Softwareentwicklung und IT-Beratung mbH: “In our view LinuxTag is the leading venue for meeting partners and competitors. The four days give us an opportunity to meet the entire industry, at networking events in the evening as well. Having an audience from abroad is important, which is why we also welcome the idea of a partner country. We had concrete talks with three French partners. During LinuxTag we also had daily meetings with job applicants. We first met some of the 17 staff, who last year received jobs with tarent, at LinuxTag in Berlin.
Dr. Christian Lange, Head of Standards and Methods, Open Source Software Competence Centre at the Federal IT Agency: “This year is the second time the Federal IT Agency has exhibited at LinuxTag. Our principal aim was to set up links between our Federal Competence Centre, the community and representatives of public authorities, one we successfully accomplished. In particular our paper at the Business & Public Authorities Conference sparked numerous interesting conversations.”
Florian Effenberger, Marketing Project Co-Lead, OpenOffice.org: “Already this is the seventh time that OpenOffice.org has taken part in LinuxTag. As in 2008 there were large audiences at the programme of papers held on Office Suite. The presentation of the 'Renaissance' project was well attended. This is an evolutionary development of the OpenOffice.org user interface. For us LinuxTag is one of the year’s major events, as the main focus here is on open source software. LinuxTag is a meeting place both of community members and of users from business. We will be back next year.“
Mans Rullgard, Project Contact for Embedded Services: “Since its inception the Ffmpeg project has been exhibiting at LinuxTag. As a highly international project we find Berlin an ideal place to gather our representatives, for example from Sweden, the UK, Austria and Ukraine. The networking opportunities and the wide-ranging programme of papers which LinuxTag offers are big plus points.”
Rico Barth, Managing Director of c.a.p.e. IT GmbH: "This is the first time that this new company has taken part in LinuxTag as an exhibitor. We are very satisfied with the number of people we met and in particular with the quality of talks. The meetings with other exhibitors were outstanding as well. There was no sign of any crisis. We have already booked a stand at LinuxTag 2010."
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Walter Roth, Fachhochschule Südwestfalen, Iserlohn: “The dominant aspect of LinuxTag is its particularly well-informed audiences. We had numerous interesting talks which dwelt on the Moneypenny software which our students co-wrote. The topic of home banking, incorporating highest levels of security and easy operation, plays an important part. There were promising talks about potential collaboration. From our point of view this year’s LinuxTag was a great success.“
Kurt Gramlich, Project Leader, Skolelinux Deutschland: “For me the high point of this year’s LinuxTag was concluding an agreement on cooperation between Skolelinux, Linux4Africa and x2go. Skolelinux schools in Germany are called upon to collect used hardware and pass it on to schools in Africa via the Linux4Africa project. It is not just hardware donations but the fact that the systems are the same that makes it possible to twin schools in Africa and Europe.”
About LinuxTag
LinuxTag is Europe's leading event for Linux and free software. The four-day event has been taking place annually on the Berlin Exhibition Grounds since 2007. It offers the very latest information for professional users, decision-makers, developers, beginners and the community. In addition to the programme of papers and a separate Business & Public Authorities Conference, LinuxTag traditionally includes an exhibition featuring projects and companies associated with the Open Source sector. A total of 10,780 visitors from around the world attended LinuxTag 2009 in Berlin. Verein LinuxTag e.V. is the non-commercial organiser of the event, which is staged jointly with Messe Berlin GmbH. More details can be found at www.linuxtag.org.
The next LinuxTag will take place from 9 to 12 June 2010 in Berlin.