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Dear Colleagues,

In just a few short days CeBIT 2009 will be opening its gates, and we will once again be hosting hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world. 4,300 exhibitors are making their way to Hannover, and given the dramatic crisis currently gripping the global economy, that is most definitely a figure we can all be proud of. While other trade fairs have simply disappeared without a trace, CeBIT remains the event in the annual calendars of IT and telecommunications professionals the world over.

The list of high-profile delegates who will be attending ?and contributing to ?CeBIT gives living testimony to its unparalleled drawing power and standing. The CeBIT Global Conferences will not only feature many of the industry’s masterminds and outspoken personalities, but will also a veritable Who’s Who of the German federal government, plus scores of official delegations from abroad.

This year’s CeBIT is of very special significance, indeed: While journalists are busy spreading bad news as if there were no tomorrow, CeBIT will be seizing a prime opportunity to get the good news across, thus helping to turn the tide on doom and gloom. California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel and the captains of the global ICT industry are all looking to CeBIT for winds of change that can help everyone set course for brighter shores.

Throughout the rough waters of the past several weeks, everyone at Deutsche Messe has shown that when the going gets tough, the tough truly do get going. Now we can all take pride in saying that CeBIT 2009 is alive and well, featuring an impressive 4,300 exhibitors from 69 countries ?an enormous feat that no would-be competitor could ever dream of!

We are about to set sail with a superlative Opening Event, followed by a show of strength that will prove that CeBIT is precisely the right medicine for quickening the industry’s pulse and injecting it with much-needed lifeblood. Now let us all strive to be perfect hosts to those who place such great hopes in the one event that can make all the difference for them.

Thank you all for helping to make this a truly memorable, uplifting CeBIT!



23 February 2009