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Good. It’s about time Europe started producing global software products. We need competition in the US and China dominated spaces.

by pb7 6y ago

kzrdude 6y ago
What's a global software product?
- cpach 6y ago
  Stuff like Gmail, Basecamp, Datadog, etc?
  - speedgoose 6y ago
    Are these products a thing in Asia?
  - ebalit 6y ago
    Datadog founders are french and they have a big R&D presence in Paris. Europe brain drain is a known problem for its tech sector but still underestimated in my opinion.
- patagurbon 6y ago
  Creative Cloud, 95% of social media, Google/Bing, Office, Autodesk stuff, Windows. The biggest European global(ly consumed) software is probably Spotify right?
  - kabes 6y ago
    Probably SAP
    - makapuf 6y ago
      Linux?
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    Someone already mentioned SAP. Also Booking.com. But also ARM (though it's hardware, not software). Europe also produces 20% of world's research in the field [1] The big question though is: do we measure success correctly? The vast majority of "great American companies" are either vaporware with inflated valuations, or produce zero innovations [2] [1] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/european-rd-review-finds-lagging-high-tech-performance-despite-major-science-investment https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/european-rd-review-f... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24460504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24460504
    - barry-cotter 6y ago
      Booking is a wholly owned subsidiary of Priceline and has been for most of its existence since they bought it after it went bankrupt.
- alexchamberlain 6y ago
  Facebook, Google, Netflix, Amazon, eBay, WhatsApp, WeChat...
- pb7 6y ago
  Any software product that has significant market share internationally.
  - abc-xyz 6y ago
    Then why would you put China alongside USA? It’s not like their software has been an international success. China pretty much only have TikTok, while EU have Spotify. You might be tempted to include WeChat and games that Tencent brought, but if we lower the bar to that then the list of EU companies would grow a lot as well, such as SoundCloud, Shazam, last.fm, Viber, King, Mojang, Rovio, Supercell, Kiloo, Dailymotion, Criteo, SAP, ASOS, Skyscanner, Wix, GoCardless, Adyen, Kaspersky Labs, Yandex, Transferwise, Badoo, etc.
ganzuul 6y ago
He isn't talking about just software products. "Ek mentioned machine learning, biotechnology, materials sciences and energy as some of these areas." Material science in particular has endless promise. With the new XFEL infrastructure there is lots of potential too. Some examples of what we could do is replace plastics with bulk metallic glass, save energy in transport with low density steel, and more broadly with eutectic systems.
disown 6y ago
> We need competition in the US and China dominated spaces. China dominates what in the global software industry? Desktop OS? Smartphone OS? Office Suite? Database? Web server? But I agree that we do need more competition.

Good. It’s about time Europe started producing global software products. We need competition in the US and China dominated spaces.

by pb7 6y ago

Good. It’s about time Europe started producing global software products. We need competition in the US and China dominated spaces.

kzrdude 6y ago

What's a global software product?

cpach 6y ago
Stuff like Gmail, Basecamp, Datadog, etc?
- speedgoose 6y ago
  Are these products a thing in Asia?
- ebalit 6y ago
  Datadog founders are french and they have a big R&D presence in Paris. Europe brain drain is a known problem for its tech sector but still underestimated in my opinion.
patagurbon 6y ago
Creative Cloud, 95% of social media, Google/Bing, Office, Autodesk stuff, Windows. The biggest European global(ly consumed) software is probably Spotify right?
- kabes 6y ago
  Probably SAP
  - makapuf 6y ago
    Linux?
- dmitriid 6y ago
  Someone already mentioned SAP. Also Booking.com. But also ARM (though it's hardware, not software). Europe also produces 20% of world's research in the field [1] The big question though is: do we measure success correctly? The vast majority of "great American companies" are either vaporware with inflated valuations, or produce zero innovations [2] [1] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/european-rd-review-finds-lagging-high-tech-performance-despite-major-science-investment https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/european-rd-review-f... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24460504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24460504
  - barry-cotter 6y ago
    Booking is a wholly owned subsidiary of Priceline and has been for most of its existence since they bought it after it went bankrupt.
alexchamberlain 6y ago
Facebook, Google, Netflix, Amazon, eBay, WhatsApp, WeChat...
pb7 6y ago
Any software product that has significant market share internationally.
- abc-xyz 6y ago
  Then why would you put China alongside USA? It’s not like their software has been an international success. China pretty much only have TikTok, while EU have Spotify. You might be tempted to include WeChat and games that Tencent brought, but if we lower the bar to that then the list of EU companies would grow a lot as well, such as SoundCloud, Shazam, last.fm, Viber, King, Mojang, Rovio, Supercell, Kiloo, Dailymotion, Criteo, SAP, ASOS, Skyscanner, Wix, GoCardless, Adyen, Kaspersky Labs, Yandex, Transferwise, Badoo, etc.

ganzuul 6y ago

He isn't talking about just software products. "Ek mentioned machine learning, biotechnology, materials sciences and energy as some of these areas." Material science in particular has endless promise. With the new XFEL infrastructure there is lots of potential too. Some examples of what we could do is replace plastics with bulk metallic glass, save energy in transport with low density steel, and more broadly with eutectic systems.

disown 6y ago

> We need competition in the US and China dominated spaces. China dominates what in the global software industry? Desktop OS? Smartphone OS? Office Suite? Database? Web server? But I agree that we do need more competition.