Capellas upbeat at CeBIT trade show

Putting the woes of his company to one side, MCI chairman and chief executive Michael Capellas delivered an upbeat opening keynote at the CeBIT IT trade show in New York yesterday.

His optimism was no doubt welcome at CeBIT's debut US show. Organisers were expecting around 40,000 attendees, but were obliged to cut the number in half leading up to the show.

Capellas told a half-full auditorium that a rebound for the communications and technology markets will stem from increasing application interoperability.

Enabling applications to share data regardless of its format or content is the next stage for IT and communications and it is already taking place, he said.

"You may not see a whole lot of new web services out there, but companies are working on integrating their own applications so that in a year or so they will be ready to launch," he claimed.

Integration, through the use of XML and web services, will in turn drive uptake of a range of technologies and markets including storage area networks, unified messaging, consumer broadband and utility computing, according to Capellas.

He made no mention of the problems faced by MCI, such as the ongoing upheaval at executive level as an internal investigation continues.

Instead he quoted baseball legend Yogi Bera. "It ain't over till it's over," he said. "That's the best advice I ever got and it's for MCI believers everywhere."