One of the highlights of the European tech calendar, CeBIT, the world's largest technology fair, kicks off on Wednesday.
According to CeBIT senior vice president, Sven Prüser, this massive IT trade fair will include a focus on service-oriented architecture (SOA), security and telematics.
ZDNet UK will be talking to security companies such as Kaspersky, as well as the Russian Software Developers Association (Russoft), about the state of IT security both in Russia and globally. We'll also be discussing coding security issues with Microsoft, in the wake of the recent news that the software giant's own antivirus software, OneCare, was accidentally quarantining and even deleting Outlook and Outlook Express email files.
John Thompson, chief executive of security company Symantec, will give a presentation on Friday 16 March about the growing importance of safeguarding corporate information and business processes, rather than devices.
Another theme of the show, held in Hanover, will be global information systems. GPS, originally developed by the US military, will go head to head at the conference with Galileo, the global positioning system currently being developed by the European Space Agency. Galileo will come online in 2010.
CeBIT will also showcase the latest notebooks, smartphones, second-generation UMPCs and displays.
Tuesday also sees the launch of Sun's annual SunLIVE event, which will focus on issues including green tech and open-source development. ZDNet UK is scheduled to interview the "Father of Java" James Gosling, to get his take on open-source directions for Sun. Gosling will also speak at a conference in Westminster on Tuesday afternoon.
Other events this week include a speech from Sir John Chisholm, chairman of QinetiQ Group, who will talk creating value from technology innovation at the UK Technology Innovation and Growth Forum on Tuesday.
ZDNet UK's Rupert Goodwins will be travelling to Southampton University on Wednesday to talk to Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with founding the world wide web.
Red Hat is also due to unveil the latest version of its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) product this week — probably on Wednesday — which should include some advancements in virtualisation and clustering.
