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shellwizard | 2 months ago

What alternatives to Microsoft, Google, IBM or AWS exist in Europe?

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input_sh|2 months ago

None of those are products, those are companies that offers 100s of products.

The question is not is there as an alternative to Google-as-a-whole, but is there an alternative to Google Search (yes), to Google Analytics (yes), to Gmail (yes), to Google Ads (yes, but not really), to YouTube (no), and to Android (yes, but not really).

Having a European mega-company that offers 100s of tightly-integrated products shouldn't be the end goal, that's just swapping one monopoly with another. We need a healthly ecosystem where there are hundreds of separate companies each solving 1-5 use cases.

em-bee|2 months ago

just a nitpick, shouldn't youtube also be "yes, but not really", since there are plenty of alternatives to hosting video. but none have the reach that youtube has, similar to ads?

dmitrygr|2 months ago

  > We need a healthly ecosystem where there are hundreds of separate companies each solving 1-5 use cases.
please make a successful economic case for a company only making a mobile phone OS, in a world where android exists and china can crank out 100x the devices at 1/10 the price paying $0 per device license fees than eu could.

mfru|2 months ago

Let's hope that jolla and Sailfish OS make a comeback with their current crowdfunded and crowd-vote-engineered phone

llbbdd|2 months ago

"Everything just works together" is, on its own, a single use case.

McDyver|2 months ago

You're actually making the exact point you want to attack.

That's why Europe needs that push to get their act together and start being self-sufficient, digital services-wise.

piltdownman|2 months ago

Digital Service dominance in this case isn't based on some trait of American Exceptionalism - or conversely based off some sort of lack of academic rigour or work ethic in European Entrepreneurship.

Rather, the current state of SaaS in the context of the historic stock market is a severe economic aberration divorced from any sort of valuation fundamentals like securities weighting. Instead we observe predatory VC and PE entities supported by a complimentary taxation and economic regime, all ultimately facilitated by the passing of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

In short, this notion of self-sufficiency is unachievable in the European context as it is predicated entirely upon wealth inequality and thumbing the scale of the free-market via lobbying, and is the doctrine denounced to the point of anathema in any Socialist Democracy.

The end result here is not some sort of organically earned digital services dominance - instead you end up with scenarios like forcing the FDIC to bail out the VC bank of Choice - SVB - where uninsured deposits were estimated to represent 89 percent of total deposits at the bank, totalling $18 billion of the ultimate $20 billion cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund.

nephihaha|2 months ago

If these hadn't been allowed to emerge as monopolies we would have a wider selection.

matwood|2 months ago

Possibly. Until recently, anyone who was in tech wanted to move to the US because there was simply more opportunity. Salaries are higher, chances of making it big are higher, failing is often seen as a positive in the US, etc... The adage that the best place to make money is the US and the best place to spend money is the EU still rings true.

The US become less welcoming to immigrants is a great opportunity for the EU, but it remains to be seen if they will be able to take advantage and overcome the structural differences.

https://www.challenge.org/insights/structural-differences-in...

csomar|2 months ago

No you would only have the European selection.

jonnybgood|2 months ago

Is that really the case for the EU? The EU doesn’t seem to foster an environment for competitive companies that can operate at the necessary scale the above listed can.

Imustaskforhelp|2 months ago

I am not gonna comment about others since obviously there are a lot but OVH from europe even though it has flaws still feels like it definitely competes with AWS

There are also hetzner,upcloud,netcup and sooo many other small cloud providers too but OVH,Hetzner,Upcloud,netcup do seem to me competitors of AWS

Europas|2 months ago

Just running Infrastructure is easy enough. Everyone did it before, we still can do it.

Its practical to use GCP, Azure and AWS for sure but yeah they were always market dominant.

Its probably time to say good buy to an old ally who became demented and hostile to europe :(

blibble|2 months ago

create a innovation fund by taxing them

starting at 20%, increasing 1% each month until the "liberation day" tariffs are dropped

the innovation fund should be structured build up local competitors to US hyperscalers