Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#391

Post by Udik » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:38 PM UTC

Pedrit0 wrote: post #354

Udik wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, I don't think we need to copy the technology: that is probably easily available, you just need good engineers and money. The problem is exactly the second you mention: why is it that EU companies don't have the market share that US ones have? Why are our companies not big enough? What prevents entrepreneurs in Europe from creating tech giants such as the US ones? These are the things we need to copy- not the te…

> These are the things we need to copy- not the technology. This is only my own subjective opinion: the worst thing that we could copy from the US is their business mindset. It destroys society, states, fair competition, and at the end the core values of capitalism. Their mindset gave them leadership but now is about to destroy their society. We have to find our own path.

I agree up to a point. I do think as well that there are the downsides you mentioned to the US business and social culture. But at the same time it produces a clear supremacy in a lot of sectors. We might be able to find a sweet European middle ground, but we need to start with the idea of learning from others, and learning is always a changing process. And I don't think that declaring your pride and love for who you are is a good starting point for any kind of change.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#392

Post by cdavid » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

antpls wrote: post #193

PeterStuer wrote: post #161

The problem with European software plays is a monetary problem. EU capital is much more expensive than US capital (ultimately due to the latter's status as the 'world reserve' currency due to the enforced petro-dollar regime). This is why Europe's IT sector is much more focused on B2B servuces/bespoke developments (low risk business models) and hardware/infrastructure (historic manufacturing/telecoms legacy). in term…

That looks like a good analysis to me. There are so many regulations in EU that if something happens, even organically, it has to be in order with EU regulations and priorities. The USA appropriation was never out of EU control, it was rather an accepted strategic choice. (At least, that's how I like to think about it...)

The US are not exactly regulation-free. Actually, I remember seeing people in HN who mentioned legal costs for companies tend to be much higher than in (continental) Europe.

The cost of capital is indeed one of the core issue. In Europe, almost your only way to get funding is through banks, the whole concept of VC is near absent.

In terms of innovation, etc. I think a lot of it is cultural essentialist BS. Just look at OSS: lots of core projects have a strong root in Europe, or even originated from there. But the culture of VC + university that is one core of innovation post WW2 in the US is completely absent in Europe. Intuitively, the fact that the market is more fragmented feels like an issue, but I don't know of any serious study on that.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#393

Post by joyceschan » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

Governement Productions (TM), this is gonna end up like CDC's productions during the pandemic

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#394

Post by joelbluminator » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:44 PM UTC

afr0ck wrote: post #371

joelbluminator wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying building an AWS equivalent is harder to do than building ASML? Again: if Europe could come up with ASML (which is just an example I'm familiar with, I assume there are successful companies), why can't it build in AWS equivalent? Which is even easier to do since the problem of scaling server instances is better understood and more intuitive than developing lithography machines like ASML is doing.

You should really reconsider your assumptions about server scaling and AWS business in general. AWS builds truely complex and ahead-of-time distributed systems that humans could never build before because of lack of knowledge and concentrated efforts. Distributed systems are really hard and not very well understood and algorithms are immensly complex and even harder to to engineer espeically on AWS scale. See DynamoD…

The main business in AWS is not DynamoDB. I'm not even sure what it is without checking, and seems like people hosting on Google / Microsoft / other big corp can do without. Nor does Europe need to copy 100% of AWS's feature set.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#395

Post by Haga » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

MaximumYComb wrote: post #26

ReticentVole wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA Payroll tax: 15.3% combined, first $127,000 only (3.89% effective) France Payroll tax: 20% for salaries over €151,965. USA Income tax: 42%, including State (CA) and Federal, excluding deductions France Income Tax: 50%. So the labour cost will be a lot higher due to payroll taxes, and the employee will take home less due to income taxes. High VAT (20% in France, 8.5% in SF) means consumer purchases are also more e…

San Fran also has over 8k homeless in a population of 800k. The overall homeless rate in France is about 5x lower per capita. My opinion on paying taxes changed drastically after I visited the USA 2 years ago (San Fran, LA, Vegas). I was absolutely shocked by the amount of poverty I saw and I had never realised that America had such a drastically different culture to Australia.

The taxes in the US are just hidden away in privat services. Your gated community guard. Your doctor. Your car. Your kids educationaand school. All the things in Europe provided, you pay extra.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#396

Post by guiriduro » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:47 PM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #264

joelbluminator wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The talent is there, the money could be there if Europeans governments take it seriously, so why not? What's stopping EU from building an AWS equivalent? It's not rocket science. If Europe could come up with companies like ASML which are at the top of chip engineering, they can definitely build software infrastructure. Some of your points ring true but A) What used to be doesn't mean it will always be B) U.S has it's…

> What's stopping EU from building an AWS equivalent? Years of experience running their own massive platform before entering the market of renting those services to others? > they can definitely build software So can OVH and Rackspace. So why would this project take off better than those established companies? Don't get me wrong, I'll be cheering this to succeed, but how is this effort different?

If I rememberm AWS CTO is dutch. Throw €100bn in a tech fund and poach him or someone like him, give them free reign, done. Poverty of imagination and obsessive financial conservatism and control freakery from the euro investment community is the real problem, not lack of talent.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#397

Post by Udik » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:49 PM UTC

Pedrit0 wrote: post #374

Udik wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They created the Cloud and we arrived late on this market Same for the web, for the mobile, and for many other sectors. We seem to be always late on the market, why is it so? > All defense/sensitive/state owned companies, administration and maybe banking companies will not have the choice Ok, so if I understand it correctly the EU is going to regulate out from some sectors non-EU companies and has to both come up w…

> Same for the web, for the mobile, and for many other sectors. We seem to be always late on the market, why is it so? 1.We lost the WWII. The US won it and took the leadership of the world. At a moment we were rebuilding our continent, they developed very quickly and took a competitive advantage in many sectors. We managed to catch-up in some but not in others. And since the beginning IT has always been an American…

> And since the beginning IT has always been an American thing

> apart Minitel in France in the 80's

> Thomson, Siemens or Olivetti.

> I think mobile developed first in Europe (Nokia ?)

Yep. And let's not forget that the www was invented by an Englishman in Geneva.

So how come we seem to be losing all the battles in the end? I agree that there's geopolitical explanations too: another commenter mentioned that the petro-dollar system grant the US with a much lower cost of money- and it's not a small thing. If I understand it correctly, the US acts as the world's bank: prints money that everybody is forced to use and emits in exchange debt titles that everybody wants to buy. That's a huge advantage.

But let's not forget that in the US rules are simpler and companies often have a relative freedom to break them if the public finds it useful; that they can easily downsize and fire underperforming people in case of need; that professionalism and expertise are highly valued; that public administrations are open and welcome new initiatives (imagine in the EU a small private company like SpaceX was at the beginning getting multi-billion contracts from ESA...).

While in France you have judges ordering (shamelessly, in my view) that Google both has to do a certain job and pay for the privilege of doing it.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#398

Post by Nasrudith » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

Udik wrote: post #364

Pedrit0 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is it that EU companies don't have the market share that US ones have? Why are our companies not big enough? They created the Cloud and we arrived late on this market, so we lag, therefore our companies are not big enough. This FR-GER initiative will secure market shares for european actors, in order they can grow enough to provide a sovereign platform for EU companies which need it. > Are you going to force EU…

> They created the Cloud and we arrived late on this market Same for the web, for the mobile, and for many other sectors. We seem to be always late on the market, why is it so? > All defense/sensitive/state owned companies, administration and maybe banking companies will not have the choice Ok, so if I understand it correctly the EU is going to regulate out from some sectors non-EU companies and has to both come up w…

> Same for the web, for the mobile, and for many other sectors. We seem to be always late on the market, why is it so?

From what I have seen it is because of an "ask for permission culture" as a norm. The French show up the most in news stories with "felony interference with a business model" stories.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/08/07/158371114/ou...

Say what you will about its role in food but it isn't exactly surprising that innovation doesn't spring forth when new ways of doing things are greeted with such hostility.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#399

Post by foobarian » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

barrenko wrote: post #325

heipei wrote: post #164

As a German who's been exclusively working in the US tech space for the past few years, there's so many anecdotes that come to mind to highlight how far behind the old world is, both in tech as in spirit: - Article about Gaia-X in major German newspaper FAZ explained that on AWS you can spin up your own infrastructure, "sometimes even without talking to anyone from sales", from your home! - When I tried to read or wa…

As a self-taught junior, my move from Croatia to Germany in attempt to get a "better IT job" at the end of last year was something between amusingly comical to amazingly absurd. Even before the Corona wave hit.

I wish Croatia became a go to place for remote work. Beautiful place and climate, sit at a cafe with a laptop sipping Radlers all day long. I'm guessing there are corruption/inefficiency problems opening remote offices or office parks.

Re: Germany, France launch Gaia-X platform in bid for ‘tech sovereignty’

#400

Post by peteretep » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

t0mas88 wrote: post #375

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe me, the UK is ages ahead of Germany in terms of digitization.

The UK is ages ahead of Germany, but that's because Germany is very non-digital, not because the UK is so ahead. When I lived in the UK things like online banking, internet speeds (even in London) and 4G/5G coverage all felt a few years behind as well.

> all felt a few years behind as well

A few years behind whom, though? Consumer banking in the UK is eons ahead of America, and the UK has had a very dynamic and competitive consumer phone sector for years.