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Genuine question - Has any major tech innovation/ product come out European industry (mainland EU) over the last couple of decades ? (not Academia) Their bigge
by screye 6y ago
Genuine question - Has any major tech innovation/ product come out European industry (mainland EU) over the last couple of decades ? (not Academia)
Their biggest tech companies are Spotify and Skype. That's pretty underwhelming given that Spotify's biggest innovations are in product development and Skype became a subsidiary of an American company within 2 years of its existence.
Additionally, the 2 companies that seem to have industry tech talent: UK and Sweden, are not part of this deal.
- SSLy 6y agoFor a major product sure, the ASML devices. Ericsson and Nokia are pushing 5G.
- sfvisser 6y agoASML comes to mind. Dutch company building large lithography machines being used to create semi conductors. The tech scene in mainland Europe operates completely differently from what you might be used to from Silicon Valley, but there is lots of stuff going on. If you only look at the European car manufactures and the endless amount of small-to-medium sized businesses involved in the supply chain. Lots of stuff going on.
- skummetmaelk 6y agoIf your definition of "tech" is so narrow that it only includes web app companies then yeah, you're right.
- lou1306 6y agoBioNTech is German.
- dejv 6y agoEU power is in niches. There are many companies specialised equipment, are worth billions and if you are not in that niche you probably never hear pf them. For example most of electron microscopes are developed and manufactured in EU. (Actually more than 60% of world supply is manufactured in my home town of 350k)
- Daho0n 6y ago>major tech innovation 25% of the worlds research is done in the EU and a lot of that leads to something. Sounds to me like you look for software for the average Windows user only. ESA and CERN alone leads to huge innovations.
- chrisjc 6y agoSorry for the lazy question, but how does anything from CERN lead to new products or services?
- SiempreViernes 6y agoThe lazy answer is ofcourse that they made something useful and then shared it with others. Have you heard of http? Maybe you've heard of x-rays or electrons being used for imaging?
- dejv 6y agoAntivirus software is quite strong in EU: Avast and AVG (acquired by Avast) come to mind.
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoSkype was great software, came out in 2003 (!) , at the time when whatsapp, facebook and twitter didn't even exist! It was the first practical videocall software and pioniered the niche. It did more to improve my life than all social networks combined. I backed it with hard cash, paying for Skype premium or whatever it was called. Then in 2011 MS bought it, and best as I can tell, has delivered no real improvement for the consumer. The client was rewritten twice, now it's in JS, glitchy, slower and serves adds. I think the world would have been better off with independant Skype, Zoom should have never become a thing.
- jnurmine 6y agoShort answer: yes, there is plenty of innovation taking place in diverse domains ranging from elevators to energy grids to robotics to pharmacology/biotech to medtech to defence to telecommunications to green tech and so forth and so on. If the criteria of tech innovation is a cloud-based xAAS then the list will be unfortunately short. The semiconductor push was really expected for a longer time already and is (I think) obviously part of the aspirations in the strategic autonomy continuum. If the roles were reversed, that is, EU with some Asian countries owned and controlled the majority of all chip fabrication, it would make perfect sense for USA to start chip production of its own on its own soil.
- fomine3 6y agoMP3 by Fraunhofer IIS?
- dariosalvi78 6y agoYou know, tech includes things like trains, aeroplanes, biotechnology, power, scientific instruments, chemistry... But yeah, it's HN, tech here means only FAANG.