All of the companies you listed were started by American individuals with minimal budgets. So I ask you, why don't you go out and do the same? Why complain and wait for someone else to do it? I don't mean to criticize you, I am just asking it as a rhetorical question. Maybe the reason all those companies are American ones is because there is an American mentality that is different than that of Europeans. Everyone in the USA is dreaming about how to start more companies like that every day.

Also, Europe has good car companies. VAG is on top, for one. I don't know why they bought Ducati, but I guess they can because they are on top. Just because GM left Saab to die you should not be disappointed.

It could be Nokia mierda just to show what's the value of the device and the stock, 2 in 1 and we all win

Honestly, we should expect nothing else form him. His words can have a direct influence on the stock value. If he had as much as hinted that he was questioning Elop's viability he would have sent the stock plummeting on speculation that there would be changes. So in short. this means nothing. For all we know, he is planning on dumping Elop tomorrow and putting Hologram Steve Jobs in charge.

Ollila the ex-chairman told that there will be a windows tablet. What kind of disaster shall that be? Why are the trying to be a PC manufacturer (again, there was that booklet flop)?

I believe the Mierda will be the WP8.5 line of Nokia devices, if the WP8 Enculada line makes it....

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/05/03/...phone-vendors/ (Sorry if repost)

Not much Nokia left, well not much left of anyone but two.

My favorite line: "It's hard to break through. It's been harder than we expected," Chief Executive Stephen Elop told shareholders.

Are you kidding me? You took what was already a company in a downturn, you pooped all over your current offerings, married your product to the most losing platform out there (incredibly, doing worse than Blackberry and Palm!) and you have the audaciousness to exclaim that you expected it to be easier than this? Elop--you're an unbelievably stupid person and it's possible that you're clinically stupid if you can say such a thing openly where people can hear you in private much less out loud to the press and shareholders.

Of course they are! There's so few of them left, I'm sure they're just FIGHTING to keep what's left of their jobs. Now THAT's pride!


If only you were right. The INTENT of patents is to allow an inventor to protect their inventions and to profit from their ideas. In truth, they are simply a legal right to a monopoly over an "invention" whether or not you are the "inventor" or just a patent holder or some entity that holds the rights to said "invention." Even the word "invention" is used VERY loosely with regards to patents in this day and age. Some "inventions" are nothing more than an idea with no tangible or actual invention in fact. (i.e. business methods, software, etc. they're even skirting alongside discoveries pretending they're "inventions" like genetic information, for example.).

Oh what a f***ed up system it is. If ONLY it were used just to protect inventors and to promote inventions, instead of being used as a club to violently beat others over the head.

These things should be put into a little plastic sleeve and sold in a vending machine alongside similarly priced candy. I'm sure they'd sell more that way and probably be worth more as an image than as actual stock value, pretty soon!

For one, the banking meltdown might have put a severe hamper on start-up capital. Banks aren't willing to lend to start-ups anymore. Seriously--why don't YOU go out and try to see if you can help him raise capital for his start-up. It's not as easy as it was during the time periods when the start-ups he mentioned started up.

Heheheh.. They should have named a car the Lumia and used the VAG acronym to badge their car! Honestly, today is the FIRST TIME I've ever heard of Volkswagen referred to as VAG and I laughed for a good few seconds before and after Googling it (safeword mode!). heheh Nice.

Now, now... they intended to convey cheap and trashy, not outright crap. Besides, I'm sure that name is already reserved for another Microsoft product somewhere.

Ooooo! Nokia should TOTALLY hire John Sculley!

I'm only responding for one reason...

There's VAG in this thread.

tee hee

Right?!? Who would have expected THAT around here?!

SHUT UP, HOMER!

If only it would be that simple... For one, Europe lacks the institution of venture capital which can be a key differentiator between a success and a total Elop, err I mean flop. You can have an incredibly good idea, you can even find crème de la crème developers to execute it and willing to work for peanuts, but you need a sizable amount of money to burn before it could even have a prospect to become self-sustaining one day, let alone profitable. Due to all kinds of laws and general socialistic nature of most European countries it's quite expensive to own capital and throw it around on start-ups for the vague promise some of them will bring 1000%+ returns - at least far more expensive than it is in the USofA which makes European VCs, and by extension start-up companies far less competitive than their USofA counterparts.

The only `real success` (tho still questionable if profitable, but Microsoft seems to think so) of such garage companies coming from Europe, that I know of, is Skype, which - lo and behold - also had to jump over the Atlantic pond and secure money from USofA VCs like DFJ and others - and were it not for the P2P foundation of it, which by default requires far lesser amount of money and resources to establish the initial network, it would've probably flopped before anyone of us even heard about it. And in the end, now it is a USofA company.

Mind you, I don't blame the USofA for that, I'm just saying that the things aren't as rosy as you paint them to be, and while the stories of 'two college dropouts forming a company in their mom's basement and becoming billionaires over night' are nice and soothing, they are less real than the fairy tales featuring a prince on a white horse showing up from nowhere and solving all the life's problems. You need money to make money, and in that regard Europe is no competition for the USofA. And while you can find VCs in Europe, and even get American VCs to invest in your start-up, those opportunities are far lesser, and far more sparse, not to mention far more expensive, than you can get if you were in the US. Many European companies (mine amongst others) open a USofA branch (which becomes a virtual HQ) for that reason, and then should their business become a success they are not considered European companies, mainly due to the large stake of the business owned by American VCs.

In the past several years, tho, what with the recession and global economic crisis, it's been increasingly difficult to start a successful start-up company anyway, so it's a moot point to even discuss why there isn't an European Facebook/Twitter/Youtube/etc.



Software / business methods patents are the / of all evil in the modern industry, especially the IT industry. They are a legalized monopoly mostly owned by huge companies and patent hedges, used to bully the competition and ensure your acclaimed top spot. While they might have made some sense in the distant past when inventions were scarce and it benefited all for those inventions to come in the open ASAP as the production was limited, these days they just make no sense. Not to mention that back then at least you couldn't patent an idea or an algorithm, which you can do now.

Imagine if music could be patented back in the XVIII/XIX century - you'd have something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slVseKxhjjU . It's pretty much the same these days when it comes to software.