We have a love hate relationship. Or, I should actually say, I have a love / hate relationship with CeBIT, I don’t think that CeBIT cares.

Standing at that booth for a whole five days is exhausting, frustrating, stimulating, all of it together or one after the other.

First time I’ve been here was in the 80th of the last century. At that time I was only invited to set-up, and others were doing the booth duty. My feelings were hurt, and I wanted to be one of the guys that are allowed to talk to the participants. But no. I had to go home on opening day.

Then I got to work for IBM, and I actually *had* to go. I started to experience the exhaustive side, the adrenaline side and the experience of hanging out for too long in the evening in Greek restaurants around Hannover in the evenings (really, there’s hardly anything else you can do there – do you remember, Mike?).

Now, working for the Eclipse Foundation, we actually have a little pavillon together with our members. In the very busy hall 2, just in the center of the Open Source pavillon, you could find us. When the show started, I was thinking that this should be my last CeBIT. But know, even with all my muscles on fire and back, legs and feet hurting, I’m hoping that we’ll be back in 2013. Weird, eh?