IFA blurs the lines of emerging tech for work and play

Germany has played host to one of the biggest European tech events this year with IFA 2014 held in Berlin across September 5-10.

While major product launches and showcases were from Toshiba, Huawei, Samsung with the Galaxy Note 4, the Sony Xperia Z3 and the Asus ZenWatch, there were also significant developments on the 4K front, smart TVs and smart home appliances.

The annual tech event which featured 1500 exhibitors and 240,000 visitors last year garnered  orders worth 4 billion euro during proceedings according to IFA organisers Messe Berlin.

Among international trade visitors, Asia and Australia together represented an impressive 15.6% of total international visitors last year.

Australian IPTV solutions provider, CombiTel attended IFA this year as part of an expansion drive for the company. “The changing face of the technology sector means that consumer electronics is now tied up with broadcast and media distribution. Consumer electronics is essentially the new face of media convergence," said CombiTel Managing Director, Eugene Razbash.

With over 62,000 media representatives from 65 countries the show put the media spotlight on a diverse range of new and emerging companies and technologies from smartphones, tablets, smartwatches and Androidwear, to smart tech enabled fridges, microwaves and other consumer items. 

Unlike other B2B technology exhibitions, IFA is a reflective of the transformative changes taking place at a functional consumer level enabled by technology innovation in addition to showcasing the next wave of emerging technology in the traditional sense.

“The rise of M2M , sensors and IPTV access to the homes is redefining technology usage on the personal and business levels and blurring  the lines between consumer and business applications. As such we need to be at the forefront of the changing tides from the manufacturing to the service layers. IFA has a taste of every part of the emerging technology ecosystem,” Razbash said.