Will EU policy smother the cloud?
October 30, 2012
Grazed from ZDnet. Author: Phil Wainewright.
People in the tech industry generally prefer not to get caught up in politics, but it’s now becoming vitally important to do so, especially if your business is in any way connected to cloud computing in any European market. Read on for the back story of how policy makers at the EU have now officially discovered the cloud, and the decisions they’ll take over the coming year about regulation of the industry. This is something I’ve been close to as chair of EuroCloud UK and a vice-president of EuroCloud in Europe (both unpaid roles). It’s now time to for everyone to take note of what’s going on.
First of all, a bit of context. In the tech industry, all eyes tend to be on the US and thus it’s easy to underestimate the size and complexity of the European market. Europe is a bigger economy than the US — $17.5 trillion in the 27 EU member countries alone, according to World Bank figures for 2011, compared to $15 trillion for the US. So why does it have less impact in tech? The trouble is, it’s far more difficult for any one business to exploit that market value (even a cloud business) because of the EU’s 23 different languages, 11 currencies, and a myriad of different business regulations, practices and cultures. US tech companies find it much easier to scale up fast because they don’t have to contend with such barriers…
Breaking down those national barriers to allow more business expansion and competition has been one of the main objectives of the EU ever since its foundation. In a sense, the EU is the political equivalent of cloud computing — instead of having lots of inefficient individual fiefdoms, the countries of Europe pool their sovereignty so they can have more agile, cost-effective and faster growing economies. Where the analogy breaks down however is that, whereas cloud computing is led by technologists and entrepreneurs, the EU is run by eurocrats and politicians…
Read more from the source @ http://www.zdnet.com/will-eu-policy-smother-the-cloud-7000006629/