Who Quaeros?
March 11, 2008
Europe is concerned about Google.
When I was in Denmark in November 2006, I learned that about 85 percent of the country’s search traffic was a result of Google searches. I think Google has increased its share of traffic in Denmark to Germany’s level. For those of you not paying attention, Google drives about 90 percent of the traffic in Deutschland.
There are two initiatives under way to “kill Google.” The first is Quaero, a French inititive. You can read about it here. The second is a German-flavored project called THESEUS, which received funding a year ago. My understanding is that Fast Search & Transfer is in the saddle for the THETUS project, but my information may be stale. The French, not to be outdone, have routed money to Quaero. Check out his story — “France Cleared to Fund Search Project”. Here’s a snippet:
France won EU approval Tuesday to give $152 million to several companies hoping to build a European rival to U.S. search giant Google Inc. … The commission said the grant would not give Thomson market power because rivals will likely keep up their investment in research and development. It cleared the German government to give $165 million to the German arm of the project, called THESEUS. That money will fund “icebreaker” companies — Siemens AG, SAP AG, Deutsche Thomson oHG and EMPOLIS GmbH, owned by Bertelsmann AG — to kick start research. The aid will later spread to smaller firms.
Am I misreading this? My work has publicized some of France’s most promising search and content processing companies.So, what do you do if your are German or French? Replicate the Silicon Valley VC environment? Alter the tax laws? Reduce bureaucratic red tape? Encourage university incubators? Nah, too complex. Just give the money to industrial giants and tell them “build a better Google”.
In my experience, governments dumping money on industrial giants leads to predictable outcomes. Those that come to my mind include Halliburton’s contributions in Iraq, IBM’s work to implement the Documentum content management system for the US Senate, and the numerous reengineerings of the Internal Revenue Service’s computer systems.
Look at these to re familiarize yourself with French engineering and computer science:
What puzzles me is how will France figure out which of these companies will get a wedge of euros to “kill Google”. What will the Thomson oHG operation do with French wizards who are hacking away in un dortoir? Probably nothing.
With French venture capital forcing some French entrepreneurs to leave France for such places as — gasp! — England, I hope some of the euros feather the nests of young entrepreneurs.
The battle lines are drawn. The German “icebreakers” Siemens AG, SAP AG, Deutsche Thomson oHG and EMPOLIS GmbH, owned by Bertelsmann AG will try to crush Google and, of course, France. The French companies will try to “kill Google” and turn off the power for THESEUS, of course.
If we factor these battle lines, you will notice that I think Google will chunk forward, allowing the icebreakers to smash and crunch forward.
For those of you who don’t know what a European icebreaker looks like. Take a gander. Do you think this can smash over Google? Will these efforts run aground? I will watch the progress closely and plot the activity on Google Maps until Google is crushed that is.
Stephen Arnold, March 12, 2008
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One Response to “Who Quaeros?”
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Hello Stephen,
I thank you for adding the Digimind company in your radar screen. I would like to invite you to present what’s new at Digimind (we recently unveil new release D.7) and to discuss your views on the CI market.
Regards, Chris.
(chris.hote@digimind.com, 617-943-8564)