All Europe catches a cold. So said Klemens Wenzel von Metternich in 1820. And the sneeze in America is being felt here in its own way. It has slowly dawned on me that several of the really big Gitex stands are simply gone. Sony used to fill a whole hall - gone. Microsoft had the largest of all the software stands - gone. i-Mate - largest of the device manufacturers stands - gone. Siemens - gone. Also some of the stands were odd such as one which was a company that is a chain of electronics shops in Dubai - as if they needed to fill the space. Then there is the odd embarrasing gap:

Gap like that have not been see at previous shows. If some of the companies pulled out - no one told the visitors because Gitex was still buzzing with people from as far away as Kenya and Egypt. It seems to me that the big companies are expecting a storm to come and are backing off early.

In other news Apple will be launching the iPhone in 3 Arab countries com January. Apparently Egypt has them already but they are stuck in a warehouse because the Egyptian state bans mobile GPS devices. I saw many people with a hacked iPhone and all had a very poor Arabic implemnetation patched onto it for $30 extra. Unless Apple get their act together with proper Arabic support all the phones they sell in the region will either be gre marketed or hacked and this will seriouly undermine their distribution channels and even even control of the market.

I leave you tonight with this nice photo of the tallest building in the world taken from the Gitex car park!