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April 11, 2005
Can Europe compete?
I'm back home. While I was traveling, I read the new dead-tree issue of Red Herring. The issue focusses on the current state of Europe when it comes to startups, funding and economic perspectives. An interesting read and plenty of overlap to things I've been thinking about while over in the US. Much of the issue focusses on how innovations that were "born" in Europe have been successfully commercialized in other parts of the world (Linux being the Open Source example).
The different articles also touch on the difficulties of European entrepreneurship. Not all of which are problems that stem from legal or bureaucratic red-tape but also from the people themselves being reluctant to take risks. When I talked to various people at OSBC about the reasons for the rise in Open Source companies over there, they cited:
- Corporate (CIO) level Open Source visibility
- Availability of venture capital for Open Source startups
- Willingness of US employees to "take risks" and be mobile
There are obviously plenty more reasons the European playing-field is different from the US - but are we doing enough to compete? I think the current answer has to be no.
Posted by Matthew at April 11, 2005 05:53 PM