L&SI reports from Frankfurt, Germany

Germany - Frankfurt is always a marathon, but making it more tolerable this year was an upbeat atmosphere and an abundance of new products. Obvious developments were in digital sound technology, networking and Ethernet. Various companies are developing strategic partnerships, although the symbiotic and open way they have found to connect with one another cannot have been without its challenges. Developing suitable technology for communication between own brand hardware and others must surely require some elements of trust. However, today this seems to be one of the limited roads to choose in the fight to gain momentum in an otherwise highly competitive market, where marketing by product association seems to be on the increase.

As for the show itself, having claimed last year that visitor numbers provided the biggest gate ever, I was somewhat surprised to discover that show organizers reported visitor numbers were higher still this year. With these reported record numbers of people attending (somewhere in the region of 93,000 over the five days) the show felt surprisingly quiet, not only to us but also to a fair number of exhibitors we spoke to.Plenty of new products were launched this year and with the digital revolution in sound getting closer to centre stage all the time, perhaps this is a good place to start.

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