In its second year, show improves in size and focus

CeBIT America is the leading Information & Communications Technology (ICT) event for the Enterprise Business Marketplace – combining a broad-based mix of products and services to provide insight, information and answers to all of your enterprise technology needs,” their literature boasts. What that means is there are booths to help you protect your networks, others to make configuring multiple hard drives easy –- and a nearly endless stream of business software. This is not a computer show for the masses. There were areas dedicated to businesses from South Korea and Germany and a large area set aside for educational purposes -– where a number of New York high schools had booths in front of a life-sized robot/basketball court. Those involved looked like they were having a lot of fun interacting with technology they can actually understand. PalmOne used the occasion to announce a Bluetooth GPS navigation system for their Tungsten T3 and Zire 72 handheld computers. From the quick demo I received, I can say the device’s voice instructions were easy to hear (and to follow) and the 3-D maps were very cool to watch (but not while you’re driving). Palm will price the GPS Navigator system at $299 when it goes on sale in the middle of June. Samsung was showing off a very cool point-of-sale device for businesses. It uses their Windows Mobile-based SPH-i700 Pocket PC Phone/PDA as a portable sales device and a small, slide-on cradle. It enables salespeople to perform secure credit card transactions, capture digital signatures and print receipts from the field. The handheld uses the Verizon Wireless data network to do its thing. CeBit America runs through Thursday, May 27 at New York's Javits Center.