Apple has not even a booth at Germany´s second largest IT for a couple of years now, yet it maintains the biggest presence at the show.
How? The Munich Fair has installed a whopping 250 iMacs for visitor registration at the main entrances to the show. The machines run a web browser in kiosk mode (meaning you can´t get out of the pages shown and there is no field to type in URL). The registration application runs as a web based app. I assume that the installation will also be used for registration for other trade shows and events hosted at the Munich Fairgrounds.
Here are the amazing pictures:
The application is quite primitive.
Most of the iMacs are installed in this large array.
At the end of each isle, there is a printer that prints out the badges after registration.
Lots of people were simply blown away at the view of this. I saw scores of them taking pictures with their digital cameras as was I.
On the fairground itself, Apple´s presences was close to nil except for the odd iMac here and there. In general, the show suffers from a lack of drive in the industry. The number of exhibitors is about 40% smaller than last year. In spite of that, it was the first exhibition in years that I enjoyed roaming because of its reduced size. I actually managed to visit all of the halls in one day. I did not see every detail, of course, but I got a pretty good overview of the trends which was my primary objective.