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

politico.eu

401–410 of 507 posts

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

#401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today I was looking at some job ads for mid-senior devs in London. £50K and 200+ applicants. And then it says:fruits, free parking, private healthcare after 1 year.. And this suppose to be the tech center of Europe..

That's pretty average for dev jobs in commercial enterprises in London (e.g. working for a B2C). In the UK, the big money for developers is in finance (either at a bank, or prop trading, or insurance, or gambling, etc). If you want a shock have a look at the wages in some of the surrounding areas (e.g. Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire) - you'll be lucky to break 40k£, even if your skill set is very specific to what is re…

> If you're a mid/senior contracting at a bulge bracket bank you could expect a ~500£ day rate

That’s a not uncommon rate outside of banking too in London.

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

#402
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Milage varies in Europe. In Germany, opening a bank account "over internet" means sending paper letters back and forth, while in Belgium I didn't have to sign or send anything by post.

That depends on the bank. Some allow you to sign the papers online and only require you to authenticate yourself to make the contract binding. This authentication can be done by letter as you said, it in person in the post office or with a video call in which you show your Ausweis. Your bank just might not support these options, but some do.

Also, it depends on country. When I was opening a bank account in Czech Republic, they required a passport and that's it. In Ireland though, you need to wait until you get registered for taxes, then you need to show the proof that you work, then an accommodation contract in order to open a bank account. I spent a month without a bank account.

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

#403
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the two first points are more specific to Germany than to the old world as a whole. Up here in Scandinavia, we often laugh at how much Germans interact with humans, send letters and faxes, and make phonecalls in their business lives. They are woefully far behind. From what I understand the same is true for the south. While I agree with the basic premise of the last point too I think you maybe underestimate th…

It's not just Germany though. The UK is absolutely obsessed with making phone calls. Lots and lots of completely useless phone calls. Most of them could easily be replaced by an online booking system. Others serve no purpose at all, because all that's required is for them to take some action. Same with US corporations. I recently tried to sign up for Microsoft's partner network because that's required for an Office 3…

> But I wasn't able to complete their byzantine signup process because there's a bug in the user interface that prevents me from confirming the tax status of my company.

Dito here, the solution is to validate your domain in Business Intelligence. No I am not joking. My email is in profile, I'll send you the process.

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

#404
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.

Would you mind telling more details? Genuinely interested.

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

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At building great software. While America struggles to build one mile of subway, Europe struggles to write one line of code. There are exceptions (I'm partial to Jetbrains) but it's true overall.

Laughs in Linus Torvald, Joe Armstrong and Guido van Rossum, just off the top of my head

That's just it. There are individual luminaries where individuals can act. But as a full system, you just don't get good tech products out of Europe.

You misunderstand. It isn't that Europeans are dumb. They're just people so of course there are smart ones and dumb ones same as anywhere else. I'm not claiming some racist thing that Europeans aren't competent just like I'm not claiming Americans can't build subway.

Europe itself though isn't set up to make pioneering software products. Just like America can't efficiently build subway.

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

#406
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well but Qwant has its core product in its infancy, if they can't even manage that, you tell me. The problem has many layers, Europe is not really united, which makes most markets small, the governments are pretty bad at managing investiments in tech fields, and there's not enough private capital going around pouring money into this.

You're a bit harsh, it does work, so they do manage that. I don't think there's the intent to kill google or become as big. Competing against Google is also a huge task... It's far from perfect, there's definitely stuff they do wrong, but it's also far from being the Quaero fiasco.

Well, maybe you're right, but I tried to give them some feedback about spanish results and the difficulty to use quotes and even when I really tried, it was impossible.

And yes results are bad in spanish.

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

#407

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…

There's no European software in the pragmatic sense. Because anyone with two bits of brain buys the first ticket to SF and tries their luck in the valley. Because that's where the magic happens.

If you have correctly identified the market niche, you have a great idea, you have a team, the opportunity, chances, timing, business plan, etc... you won't waste time anywhere, you go and apply to YCombinator or whatever.

As long as the biggest consumer market is there, there's no point in trying to start here.

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

#408
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…

European startup tech companies with valuations >= $1 Billion: * Klarna (Sweden)(online payments) * N26 (Germany) (mobile banking) * BlaBlaCar (France) (Ride sharing) * Vinted (Lithuania) (ecommerce) * Acronis (Switzerland) (backup/recovery) * Glovo (Spain) (delivery) * Outsystems (Portugal) (enterprise app platform) * Bolt (Estonia) * Veeam Software (Switzerland)(acquired, I think) There are more. There's a trillion…

An extremely disproportionate number of the smaller publicly traded companies in the world seem to be listed in or from Japan, the UK, or the US. I don't know why, or exactly what it means, but it's a really prominent feature of the global economy and shows that something is lacking in Europe outside the UK. I sometimes wonder if people are really unaware or just obstinately pretending.

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

#409
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…

European startup tech companies with valuations >= $1 Billion: * Klarna (Sweden)(online payments) * N26 (Germany) (mobile banking) * BlaBlaCar (France) (Ride sharing) * Vinted (Lithuania) (ecommerce) * Acronis (Switzerland) (backup/recovery) * Glovo (Spain) (delivery) * Outsystems (Portugal) (enterprise app platform) * Bolt (Estonia) * Veeam Software (Switzerland)(acquired, I think) There are more. There's a trillion…

Those companies are nice but their services are not available to all EU members whereas mist US tech companies operate in all states.

Food for thought as to why EU companies can't grow.

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