If you wandered into the CeBIT technology conference with no inkling of what the companies exhibiting did or what their products were for, you'd be forgiven for thinking that their main business was the production and distribution of reams of glossy press releases, fleets of inflatable promotional items and lots of little stress balls, keychains and less identifiable bits of plastic. And, in a sense, you'd be right: like with most conferences, the point of CeBIT is not only to show off the exhibitors' most interesting wares, but to make sure that their name and products stick in your minds when you go back to your own company. This is a taller order than you'd think: since so many companies are competing in the same arena with little outward difference among their products (few CeBIT visitors are going to choose an IP switcher by, say, color) , anything that can help make their name stand out from the crowd is a plus. Hence the surfeit of take-home goodies.

The problem, however, is that as the size and number of tech conferences like CeBIT increase, 'gizmo creep' becomes an exponentially larger problem. The search for better and brighter promotional items intensifies, to the point at which the they are now almost more varied than the products they're meant to promote. At the Microsoft .NET stand, what looked like a bowl full of gray gumballs turned out, on closer inspection, to be miniature brains (yes, brains) on keychains. The same bowl a few halls away at Palm, Inc. contained slightly more appetizing packages of Palm-logo breath mints. Sadly, no one seemed to be giving away mini-scooters.

Another cheap marketing fix are the shopping bags and carryalls for you to slip your packets of mints or brains into, conveniently leaving the bag-maker's brand where everyone can see it. Of course, this leads back to the same problem: companies keep going for a bigger bag than the other guy, to the point where convention-goers are humping around expedition-sized shoulder packs and dragging their knuckles on the floor.

The best items, though, are those that are difficult to hide, use, or explain away, and for the second year running Panasonic absolutely takes the prize for somehow convincing thousands of people to tether themselves to huge silver inflatable mobile phones and walk around for the rest of the day wearing them. Sitting in the plaza outside the main convention hall, you can watch the joy fade from the faces of happy new balloon-owners as they went past, going from 'hey, these are pretty cool' to 'how the hell am I going to get rid of this thing?' in about thirty yards.

Another marketing tip which tech companies have taken to heart: sex sells. 'Booth Babes' wander the halls in arresting getups, enticing people toward their company's stand. Unfortunately, the sex factor is often conbined with the gizmo factor, which often results in things like a six-foot-tall walking mobile phone in stockings and a woman with what appears to be several white-gloved hands prodtruding from her jacket shoulders. Again, overkill gets to be a problem, so when a pair of disinterested-looking tap-dancing cowgirls in neon orange fur hand you a packet of sweets in the central rail station, you kind of take it in stride.

But overall, the business of CeBIT is, to coin a phrase, business: for every company demonstrating its next-generation smart phones or sleek pocket computers, there's another showing off its high-end server architecture or revolutionary printing process. The nuts and bolts of the infotech revolution are on display here, and while not everyone at the conference is conversant with all of the technology on display, there's more than enough going on for the pros and the interested masses alike. Me, I plan to join them as soon as I can get this stupid balloon off.