Much of the buzz at the Mobile World Congress is about a product not even there. CNN's Adrian Finighan reports.

Barcelona, capital of Catalonian, cosmopolitan, cultured and arguably the most economically vibrant city in Spain, and for 4 days, every February, this thriving tourist hotspot hosts a tech geek frenzy, the event formally known as GSM, the Mobile World Congress, now the thing you need to know about this event is that it's big, very big, over 1, 300 companies from the big fish to the tiniest minnows are here to showcase their wares, to network, cut deals and to debate the future of wireless mobile technology, it's etched in the diaries of mobile industry leaders across the world.

It's full on for 4 days, so yeah, it's, it's the most important show of the year by far.

Do you think about the way mobile phones have changed, they've gone from being just something that you make a phone call to, to being something that as a general-purpose device, you now take pictures with them, you listening music on them, you do your email on them, you do text messaging, in addition to doing telephoning. So we think of it as a general-purpose computing environment, and software and services are gonna be key to that.

So you can see the roads and. . .

With the battle for supremacy in operating platforms raging, a raft and new wireless technology is emerging at the decidedly uncertain economic outlook, the big players at least remain remarkably bullish. Even under the very gloomy economic environment, but mobile industries still, we are performing, a lot of innovations is now taking place, so we see, strong growth potential this year again, so at least more than 10% of unit growth we expected, and on top of that, every selling price also will be enhanced, so that's good.

But there is one noticeable absentee.

Apple isn't here in Barcelona, but the iPhone is the elephant in the room, sure, there are new technologies to talk about, but it's the iPhone "killers" that everyone here to see, and it's the way that the iPhone is forced to changing the relationship between carriers and manufacturers that everyone wants to talk about.

Adrian Finighan, CNN, at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona.

WORDS IN THE NEWS

1. minnow : n-count

A minnow is a very small fish that lives in lakes and rivers.

2. elephant in the room

The elephant in the room (also elephant in the living room, elephant in the corner, elephant on the dinner table, elephant in the kitchen, horse in the corner, 400lb gorilla in the room, etc.) is an English idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored. It is based on the fact that an elephant in a small room would be impossible to overlook.