TECH GIANTS DON’T GROW ON EUROPEAN SOIL
At a Spanish telecoms and technology conference earlier this month, Telefonica boss Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete produced a slide showing the world’s 15 most innovative companies. Not one of them was European. At the same conference, hosted by sector association Ametic, Stephane Richard, chairman of France’s Orange, pointed out that Apple has enough cash to buy four of the biggest European telecom operators – Vodafone, Orange, Telefonica and Deutsche Telekom. The common message: Europe is falling behind in technology.Tech is a scale game.