
EU taxpayers to fund $306m Google rival. No wonder the Yanks think we’re dumb. - paulsb
http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/03/14/eu-taxpayers-to-fund-306m-google-rival-no-wonder-the-yanks-think-were-dumb/
======
paulsb
Pathetic. This type of thing will never work. Let the bickering between the
companies begin and watch the money be wasted. Instead of pumping money into
playing catch-up with Google, they should supporting start-up enterprises that
are innovating beyond Google. At least then these start-ups won't be going to
the states because of the lack of support and vision in Europe.

~~~
paulsb
I just realised that it is not even a fully fledged search engine, but a
"multimedia" one:

"Quaero aims to be a multimedia search engine that will work across all online
digital media platforms including PCs, mobile phones, set-top-boxes and
handheld devices. The engine will index content in several languages and will
provide content management tools for media producers to promote their
material."

This is my favourite bit:

"But after seeing that Quaero's German and French researchers were working in
different directions, the project split in December 2006, with the French
continuing to work on Quaero and the Germans focused on Theseus. Managers from
both projects have, however, said they will meet regularly to form synergies
when possible."

Like I said - bickering.

~~~
Electro
Agreed. I have no problem with government subsidising businesses to help get
them off the ground, because a lot of the time it helps them grow to the level
of competing quite quickly; except French farming.

However, no corporate group can ever perform well. One company running in a
form of dictatorship over their product, like Jobs, can react quickly and,
even for a large company, remain competative. However, if every decision has
to go through multiple screening processes, tests, etc. you end up with a
production cycle equivalent of Microsoft.

The Quaero project is doomed to failure. Not only is it going to have
corporate bickering, but it's going to be in multiple languages. You can bet a
large number of coders will enter from the UK, Netherlands and many other
countries.

This means you're going to need translators to get the documents to read
correctly in each individual language, or there's going to be many screw ups.
Not only that, but you'll be faced with several days delay between project
heads to get to a meeting. Bascially for a weekly status update, it would take
probably 3 days to get everything translated and checked. So it's a weekly-3
status update, and what you did today is never going to be on the agenda, it's
going to be the 3rd day on the next agenda, by which time something important
is gone from your focus.

I belive the best words to describe this are, eww, and, no!

------
nraynaud
Wait wait wait, here in Europe, we are not strong in internet technology or
tax spending, but we can do quite good raw milk cheese, and that's what IS
important.

More seriously, EU sometime mess up things, teh big way, but : 1) if you are
about to mess up something, don't fail shy, fail big, make some noise. If you
win, you deserve your bragging rights. 2) EU did actually create some quite
good technology, mainly with EADS, ESA and high speed trains.

disclaimer : I'm French.

edit

a more serious answer : what did the people around you told you where you
started your venture ? I bet exactly what people here say to quaero.

------
moog
Innovation rarely comes from large companies - especially European ones. Big
companies know this and don't care anyway... they can depend on ill-informed
politicians and a general public who think Bill Gates is a really cool guy
('he invented the moderen world, don't ya know') to throw money at them.

~~~
marvin
I agree. I'm from Europe, and I watch European companies get whooped by their
American competitors on a regular basis. I do think we are better off with
subsidized businesses (they prevent monopolies, which are bad), but there
aren't many European corporations who both get governmental support and happen
to be the world leader in whatever they do. I doubt there's even one.

~~~
dualogy
"subsidized businesses (they prevent monopolies, which are bad)"

I always like it how the biggest monopolist ever (in my native Germany
monopolizing or near-monopolizing by force education, transport, health care
etc) is so eager and capable of "preventing evil monopolys" out of other
peoples funds. Very protective. I feel so secure. _shudder_

;)

~~~
pmjordan
You've clearly never had to use UK public transport. Living there for 5 years
made me appreciate just how awesome transport is in Austria. Market forces
don't seem to work for trains. I think infrastructure is one of the few things
(the only thing?) that is better off regulated.

~~~
rhyso
It's not so much the market forces as the way the privatisation was
structured, and the perverse incentives that were created. The tube is a good
example - there are multiple maintenance firms, line management firms,
Transport for London, the unions, etc. All of them have competing agendas,
which doesn't fit well when they are providing one product. I would be happier
with a public monopoly than the current situation, and would accept a private
monopoly instead of both, contingent on them getting the incentives right.

------
Hexstream
From the "Throw Money at the Problem" dept.

------
xirium
Perhaps a gap in the market is emerging. 1/3 of Google's first 500 employees
have already left and stock options will vest for another 2200 staff in Aug
2008 ( [http://www.news.com/Life-after-Google%2C-with-
millions/2100-...](http://www.news.com/Life-after-Google%2C-with-
millions/2100-1030_3-6226900.html) ). Additionally, Sequoia thinks it is
worthwhile to invest US$31 million in a search engine (
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134291> ).

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mtts
The reasoning behind this idea, I think, is this: since the entire population
depends on a search engine to do their work and pretty much everything else,
search engines have become a utility and utilities should be state run.

Much in the same way railroads were nationalized in most of the EU sometime
during the early 20th century or even earlier.

As far as railroads are concerned, it was probably a decent idea (not much
free market competition possible there, really), but whether it works for a
search engine remains to be seen.

~~~
poppysan
Wow, government controlled search engines. Here we come 1984! Big brother does
it again.

~~~
mtts
Except that in a democracy, what a government controlled search engine does
with your data is more transparent than what a publicly held company (Google,
say) does with it.

Of course the EU itself is very far from being a democracy (unlike its member
states) so I'm still not thrilled about the idea, but in principle I'm not
opposed to it.

------
ldambra
They should have funded 306 start-up with 1 million instead. I'm european and
I'm ashamed.

~~~
pg
YC could fund 17,486 startups with that money. ($306 million is almost exactly
the square of the amount we invest in the average startup.)

Maybe you wouldn't want to spend it all on seed rounds. But $306 million spent
well would be enough to make a startup hub to rival Silicon Valley.

~~~
scw
The $316m could accomplish much, but I doubt directly creating a startup hub.
The drivers which turn cities into creative class meccas wouldn't be included,
and it likely would face the same difficulties as the Middle East's education
plans: <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/education/11global.html>

It would a powerful change if groups like Gates'
([http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120113473219511...](http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120113473219511791.html))
began investing in the efforts which have the best chance of the results
they're seeking: startups. I'm guessing the startup model is antithetical to
what BillsG sees as the answer, which is unfortunate.

~~~
pg
Obviously I'd choose whatever town was most SF-like. Suppose only 1/10 of the
startups lived (a very conservative assumption). Don't you think a city with
1749 startups in it would feel like a startup hub?

------
noonespecial
$306 to get a head start? Its like they say, If one woman tells you it will
take 9 months to make a baby, maybe we'd better hire 9 of 'em so we'll be done
in a month.

I think we're gonna need a new category of fail to describe this one.

------
rglovejoy
Will they be running Quaero on a fifth-generation computer?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer>

------
adduc
If Windows Live Search and Yahoo Search can't provide as good of results as
Google (assuming they can't based off of Google's increasing market share),
does Quaero even stand a chance?

------
mixmax
This is very typical of the EU, and a major factor in why Europe often falls
behind the US in innovation. The basic difference is that the EU believes that
state funding will solve the problem of innovation, while the US relies more
on capitalism and market forces.

As we saw in the Soviet era not much good comes from letting the state decide
who gets the money. More recently France even tried to to make their own
state-run internet, owned by France telecom. It was called Minitel.

------
aswanson
One a related note, can the government aid basic research here in the U.S.
(NSF, NIH, etc.) or are the agencies dispensing that money too bureacratic as
well? Here are some numbers:
<http://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/Top50Inst2/default.asp>

------
mdemare
Neelie, go get 'm!

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commissioner_for_Compe...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commissioner_for_Competition)

------
tlrobinson
First Galileo (the EU's GPS alternative), now this. Do Europeans enjoy wasting
taxpayer money on duplicating perfectly good solutions in the name of
nationalism?

------
aswanson
What happened to Europe? Before the middle of the last century, it was the
center of everything, innovation included.

How did it lose so much so fast?

~~~
pg
I think the US was ahead economically by around 1900. Scholarship tends to lag
by a generation or two.

Very interesting question though, and one I've thought about a lot, coming
from Europe to the US as a kid.

It's possible that Europe may have only lost relatively. I.e. Europe may not
have fallen so much as that other places have risen.

The single biggest problem with Europe may be government. There's a tradition
in most northern European countries of strong central government. And the
growth of technology in the 19c made it possible for a hands-on central
government to be very much more hands-on. This seems to have had a disastrous
effect on certain kinds of economic growth.

Remember too that Europe had two huge wars go through it during the 20th
century. That can't have helped.

~~~
davidw
> Europe may not have fallen so much as that other places have risen.

Right. There are tons of cool things in tech (Linux, Python, Mysql, Qt/KDE,
off the top of my head) and the sciences in Europe, just that there are more
in the US.

------
agentbleu
I live in france and before uk this sort of shit makes me sick like they
really have a fucking clue in politics as to how to develop and what to
develop in tech, fuck me the politicians in the uk didnt get fucking email
until about 2001

~~~
agentbleu
oh and you know they blew 600 million on a computer system to tie the UK
health department together, (bog standard shit) didnt even work at that silly
price.

------
eusman
doesn't even worth it to comment

