Barcelona.... the quiet before the storm

I'm in Spain for the annual mobile industry havoc-fest that is 3GSM which starts tomorrow. Somewhere north of 30000 people are here as well - I started bumping into family faces yesterday afternoon at Luton airport.

I have around 45 meetings, briefings, receptions, interviews, dinners and parties scheduled between now and Thursday afternoon, spanning from the nice leisurely lunch I had with a client in a tapas restaurant this afternoon, to dash-and-grab 30 minute interrogations with vendors in the huge exhibition halls.

If I get a chance to breathe, I'll try and post a few quick thoughts...

Observations so far... Motorola and Samsung have won the Barcelona advertising fight, with Moto This and Moto That and Moto The Other posters everywhere, pitching against Samsung's enthusiastic promotion of the first HSDPA phone, adorning city buses and most of the airport.

At least this year I've got a hotel walking distance from the exhibition centre... and had the room available when I arrived .... unlike last year's fiasco in 3GSM's previous home, Cannes in France, when a hotel receptionist greeted me at check-in with a very unconcerned "non" before eventually finding an alternative room in a fleapit 30 miles away in Nice.....