Is it too late for Europe to fight back?
Summary: It frustrates me that the supposedly single market in Europe is a concept that has existed for more than fifty years, but we're still far removed from seeing it in practice, in particular for cloud providers.
Loic LeMeur says that he has ditched Europe for Silicon Valley, and I can't say I blame him. For my personal life, I've made a deliberate choice to stay based in London, but pretty much all of my business activity until the past year or two has been centered on Silicon Valley. To me, San Francisco still feels more like a second home than Paris, Barcelona, Luxembourg or Dublin, despite my business dealings with those far closer locations.
And yet it frustrates me that this state of affairs should exist. The supposedly single market in Europe is a concept that has existed for more than fifty years, but we're still far removed from seeing it in practice, in particular for cloud providers. I see US entrepreneurs able to address a single market of 300 million individuals and a GDP almost as large as Europe's, without ever once having to negotiate different currencies, languages, business practices or data protection and retention regulations. In Europe, these barriers are a constant nightmare for entrepreneurs. Loic talks about the limited goals entrepreneurs set themselves in Europe, but in many ways it's inevitable that businesses will choose to face such challenges one step at a time, conquering markets one by one rather than all at once.
A couple of years ago, I decided to support an initiative called EuroCloud, whose mission is to fight for a more level playing field in Europe — to promote the benefits of cloud computing for European businesses and to press for the removal of barriers to an effective and competitive cloud computing industry here. Tomorrow, EuroCloud's leaders are coming to London for a quarterly board meeting and the local EuroCloud UK branch is hosting a meeting about this very topic.
Echoing a comment made by a member at one of our meetings last year, we've titled the event 'Let's Flatten Europe'. We'll be looking at the barriers, both real and imagined, that face cloud providers who want to expand out of their home countries and deliver services across national borders in Europe. We'll focus on the strategies that providers have found successful, aided by participants who are grappling with these issues every day, including Microsoft, NTRGlobal, NaviSite, Mimecast, SAP and representatives from a number of European countries.
For the first time, the event will be webcast, so wherever you are, you're welcome to join us online. If you happen to be in London, you can register to attend the event in person. I think Loic is right, that if you want to create a global success story, the easiest place to do that from is Silicon Valley. But I don't think it has to be that way, and tomorrow's event is part of a campaign to make Europe more competitive for cloud entrepreneurs.
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Talkback
If the bureaucrats in Europe want a stronger economy
something tells me they just don't care
they don't have to earn a living on the open market
There are differences in economies, also
Largest problem is ignorance.
There is no such provision. (See http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/overview_en.html for how the EU Competition works). Judging by what I see people listening to music on, Apple may have a dominant position here too, but as long as they done abuse it, they are free to continue.
The purpose of this competition "beaurocrats" is to keep the single market both single and open. Look at their case histories, and I think its clear they both needed and beneficial.
I've worked with the EU market for 25 of the last 50 years, and I have seen huge changes. Many countries do indeed share a single currency, language is less of a barrier now than it has ever been, and local legislation is not that different. One of my bugbears surrounds IP usage rights that are typically done piecemeal, but thats entirely the responsibility of the IP owners, not the rules of the market.
The European single market will never be as flat as the USA, but then again we have an incredible diverse cultural heritage, and maybe we don't want to abandon it in the name of capitalistic progress.
njoho: The European hardheadedness sounds like a recipe for failure..
The most important aspect of any civilized society is the economic well-being of the citizenry, and whether you would like to admit it or not, "capitalistic progress" is the only means with which to attain that economic well-being.
The old USSR, which dedicated so much of their resources to trying to create a superior culture, eventually found out that, without a great economy, everything else is doomed to failure. So, it sounds to me like the Europeans are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past until it's too late to change course, and the only thing they can do then is to start over.
RE: Is it too late for Europe to fight back?
Your being too simplistic. Do you really think that Italians will abandon their language for English (or whatever), in the interests of "economic wellbeing".
Would you abandon english for Chinese for the same reason?
However, my point was that huge changes have already been made in order to create a single market, but there are limits to this, and a continent of 27 soverign states simply will never acheive the same degree of flatness as the USA.
njoho: You're still not understanding my points,
It was about the overall well-being of a citizenry, and without that well-being, culture and language are irrelevant and won't feed hungry mouths.
Now, what the European community, and some individual countries have been trying, and tried in the past, has failed, every time. I'm talking about socialism, no matter what flavor and no matter what experimentation is tried in order to make it palatable. But, it's inevitable that socialism is unsustainable as an economic model, and, although it may take time for it to fail, it will eventually collapse any country that uses it as it's economic system. The old Soviet Union was destined to fail, and so were all the other economies like Spain and Portugal and Greece, and yes, even Italy.
You may not like it, but the fact is that, capitalism is the best wealth creation system that humans have ever used. It might be showing weaknesses in the U.S., but it's because the system implemented in the U.S. has been allowed to get tainted by intrusions of socialism.
But, you can go ahead and call me simplistic. Making things difficult is not going to change the outcome that is inevitable.
Never.
Im surprised he didn't see the similarities
The similarities were striking. Both rapidly declining, language barriers, high levels of unemployment combined with delusional citizens supporting bankrupted governments.
Both have an unbelief amount of legislation stifling their citizens. The irony today is you have more freedom in the former communist countries of eastern Europe. I enjoyed my 2 months in eastern Europe the most of all.
One day the other wake up and discover what they've missed.
Yet...
Yet the EU remains the world's largest econony (by GDP(PPP)). The EU also has literacy rates of 99% (compared to 85% in the USA), which is encouraging for long term employment outlook.
I'm not saying that the EU is not without its issues, but look at the progress that is being made - the integration of former eastern communist states. Also, don't forget that not even 40 years ago, western countries Spain and Portugal were fascist dictatorships.
Don't measure us by the problems we face, but how we face them. Decline? I don't think so.
RE: Is it too late for Europe to fight back?
The EU still has a long ways to go. You need to tone down the stifling regulations, you need tort reform, and your governments need to stop the excessive spending. We can say the same thing about the Obama administration. That is if you want a robust economy.
Eurozone is profitable...
I reckon most of the success is from the policies from Santer and Delors, and if you ditched all the policies since 2000 (which were basically a lot of surveillance, lobbyist and USA inspired stuff), then EU would be a lot better.
The current Greece thing and Ireland debt problem.... well that's all talk, that debt is funded by sales of goods and service, not printed money, so the core economy is solid.
Head in the sand is not a solution...
The problems in Greece and in Ireland and in Portugal and in Spain are devastating to those countries, individually, and to the entire continent, no matter how much some countries seem to be faring better than others. The reality is that, eventually, the whole continent will have to face the realities of the situation, and hard choices will need to be made. Being in denial and just hoping for miracles is not going to resolve any of the problems in the continent.
RE: Is it too late for Europe to fight back?
When was the last time the US cut spending and reduced its deficit? When did the US make tough choices? At the moment, you are printing money like mad.
kiki: I agree with you and in the U.S., some very tough choices are going
Europeans are lazy!
Bottom line, Europe is a good place to retire, but not a place to bring up your children.
RE: Is it too late for Europe to fight back?
Harmonization
Countries in the Eurozone do not have to negotiate different currencies. Britain chose to keep the pound, but I don't think it was a good choice. Harmonizing legislation means further legal integration in the EU. Something Britain usually opposes. Language differences won't disappear, but English is usually understood.
Now, I know all this sound terribly complicated to Americans and it is more complicated than in the US. But, this rubbish about capitalism vs socialism equals USA vs. Europe really shows an incredible amount of ignorance.
What about the American welfare system? The cost for medicare is exploding, but the majority of people isn't even insured. The pension payments are exploding. The only people who can be sure to be bailed out are the US bankers on wallstreet. The US public debt has reached 100% of GDP and it is increasing faster and faster under the Obama administration....
The US federal government is just as broke as Greece. The only thing letting it survive is the federal reserve.
The US hasn't even begun to address its problems.
Capitalism and Europe
Capitalism is the engine for creating wealth and for eliminating poverty
I might hate the abuses that come from a strictly capitalist system, but, for the most part, it produces much more wealth and a much better economic system for a country, which pulls more people out of poverty than any other system.
RE: Is it too late for Europe to fight back?