4 ms·

What they don't mention is the fact that there is no German IT company of international importance. The only exception is SAP and they were founded in 1972 and

What they don't mention is the fact that there is no German IT company of international importance. The only exception is SAP and they were founded in 1972 and IMO have a good chance of being disrupted in the near future if they don't start innovating soon. There may be some promising startups that have appeared over the last couple of years, but there is no Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook or anything even remotely like it.

lispm 12y ago
That does not mean that there isn't lot of software being developed, just that you focus on 'international importance'. A lot of software development goes on for industries you typically don't see much of.
- bluetomcat 12y ago
  Exactly. A lot of critical software gets written for industrial automation, and you never have a chance of seeing it on GitHub.
derwildemomo 12y ago
Spot on. I'm working and living in germany, and this is one of the biggest problems, in my opinion, for the future of this country. You rarely find some startup here that is truly innovative – the fews that are usually don't get funding. It's a dead end, and I don't see it changing.
- monksy 12y ago
  From what I found is that there isn't a competitive salary for software engineers in Germany. From what I've seen through out Europe the salaries have been rather low.. thus workers will try to immigrate to the US.
_glass 12y ago
There is also the Software AG (Revenue: €1.120 billion (2010)) … From my experience the software is very much swallowed up by SAP and the culture of hiring for the rest consulting companies which markets customizing for additional software. So the interruption will most likely not take place. This process is facilitated because of manufacturing being so much big business. It is very hard to interrupt in B2B. And the service-driven American economy is in a huge advantage because of a culturally similar testing ground and much more ability to invest here. Then you can just export.
revelation 12y ago
There was this Siemens ad recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y49KJKXI5Mg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y49KJKXI5Mg The point isn't so much that there are German IT companies, the point is that pretty much every company nowadays is an IT company.
elchief 12y ago
Well, RapidMiner is the number one data mining tool. And it started near Cologne.
rurban 12y ago
Nonsense. In industrial applications there's mostly german SW controlling the world market. They don't care that you never heard about it.
stannol 12y ago
Not true at all. There are not many high profile IT companies in Germany, true. But there are countless companies that produce A TON of software (Daimler, Siemens, Bosch, ThyssenKrupp, Continental, Schaeffler, Infineon, EADS, Rohde+Schwarz to name only a few). This software is crucial to industries all around the world, it just isn't visible like things coming from Microsoft et al.

lispm 12y ago

That does not mean that there isn't lot of software being developed, just that you focus on 'international importance'. A lot of software development goes on for industries you typically don't see much of.

bluetomcat 12y ago
Exactly. A lot of critical software gets written for industrial automation, and you never have a chance of seeing it on GitHub.

derwildemomo 12y ago

Spot on. I'm working and living in germany, and this is one of the biggest problems, in my opinion, for the future of this country. You rarely find some startup here that is truly innovative – the fews that are usually don't get funding. It's a dead end, and I don't see it changing.

monksy 12y ago
From what I found is that there isn't a competitive salary for software engineers in Germany. From what I've seen through out Europe the salaries have been rather low.. thus workers will try to immigrate to the US.

_glass 12y ago

There is also the Software AG (Revenue: €1.120 billion (2010)) … From my experience the software is very much swallowed up by SAP and the culture of hiring for the rest consulting companies which markets customizing for additional software. So the interruption will most likely not take place. This process is facilitated because of manufacturing being so much big business. It is very hard to interrupt in B2B. And the service-driven American economy is in a huge advantage because of a culturally similar testing ground and much more ability to invest here. Then you can just export.

revelation 12y ago

There was this Siemens ad recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y49KJKXI5Mg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y49KJKXI5Mg The point isn't so much that there are German IT companies, the point is that pretty much every company nowadays is an IT company.

elchief 12y ago

Well, RapidMiner is the number one data mining tool. And it started near Cologne.

rurban 12y ago

Nonsense. In industrial applications there's mostly german SW controlling the world market. They don't care that you never heard about it.

stannol 12y ago

Not true at all. There are not many high profile IT companies in Germany, true. But there are countless companies that produce A TON of software (Daimler, Siemens, Bosch, ThyssenKrupp, Continental, Schaeffler, Infineon, EADS, Rohde+Schwarz to name only a few). This software is crucial to industries all around the world, it just isn't visible like things coming from Microsoft et al.