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Re: Paris is No Silicon Valley: Neither is Europe

moneybags — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:56:00 -0000

Sweden was the 2nd country after US with Internet. Now we either #1 or #2 technology-wise as far as I know from stats. Some famous international companies: SonyEricsson, MySQL, Coding Technologies (world leading), Skype, Joost, Neonode, etc.. Not Silicon Valley, but US is loosing power to Europe, China, India and Russia for each day so soon there will be a "Silicon Valley"-place in Europe - thanks to EU.

Re: Paris is No Silicon Valley: Neither is Europe

nickck — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 14:49:50 -0000

yah europe is no cali it doesn't have a silicon valley feel at all but you are getting some new buds as they are in the dead fall that is European dead fall. but this is mostly coming form the baltic of all places Estonia i hear is become a real inovator and the capital is supposed to be almost all wi-fi so europe is coming around but not from the traditional centres that you would think.

Re: Paris is No Silicon Valley: Neither is Europe

Nicole Simon (Berlin, Germany) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:07:12 -0000

So a hot spot by your definition is anything as long as a lot of venture capital is flowing there? I know it is on vogue, but what has become of the idea to actually HAVE a business and not see ipo / exit as the only relevant business sucess?

I am getting a bit sick of seeing this as kind of the only measurement of success.

Re: Paris is No Silicon Valley: Neither is Europe

etchasketch — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 06:06:20 -0000

In my experience from both sides of the Atlantic. French costs: Salary - lower. Rent - lower. Access to IT talent - higher. BUT payroll taxes - higher. That's why tech companies set up in UK, Ireland, or Luxembourg.

Re: Paris is No Silicon Valley: Neither is Europe

balu — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 05:04:45 -0000

There are some examples, like Vincent mentioned above, but these are too few. I would say that the numbers only show that Europe is emerging from its pre-tech state, but its far from being such a hotspot of innovation as those in the USA.

Though one could argue, that there is not much innovation going on over the pond either (me in Europe). I mean yes, there is facebook, myspace, google, and ... well, not much else (I am talking about new things). Pretty much after Silicon Valley formed, and most of today's giants emerged they stopped the innovation. There is a handful of new things coming up, and thats it. What we see IMHO are the spinoff of a once full-throttle industry.

Just read Hillary's speech on science and technology, specifically how she relates the space race of the 60-70's to the forming of Silicon Valley, and the boom of educated people in science. We don't see that much these days, and probably won't, even after the elections.

(to the list of European startups: Aquia, the startup of the founder and leader of Drupal just got 9 million dollars of investment. it'll be worth to keep an eye on)

Re: Paris is No Silicon Valley: Neither is Europe

Vincent Vandevelde — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 01:13:19 -0000

Only two things :

1. 80% of french people have hight speed internet connection against 50% for american people...

2. Dailymotion, Netvibes, there are a lot of great french star-up.

American jounalist want to write about europe but americans don't know the "rest of the world".
They thinks there are still cows in Paris...

Re: Paris is No Silicon Valley: Neither is Europe

Simon — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 18:32:11 -0000

Google, Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Ebay, Paypal and many more all have their European headquarters in Ireland...