RAPID RESPONSES
California dreams
Although I wish Alan Bristow and David Miller were right in predicting that UK companies will be able to compete with the likes of Apple and Google (UK tech industry is positioned for a global challenge, yesterday), in reality we are woefully unprepared to take on the behemoths of Silicon Valley. Autonomy – before Hewlett-Packard bought it last year – was the exception, rather than the rule.
There is a lot of nonsense written about London’s Old Street roundabout – our so-called Silicon Roundabout. It is of course great that some entrepreneurs are making east London their home, but its insignificance compared to the Valley is profound. Tech start-ups should be welcomed and even encouraged, but London’s most profitable and employable future will likely rest in less fashionable and glamorous industries, such as banking and professional services.
There are cultural reasons that the US dominates tech and there is no getting past the relative homogeneity and size of their internal market.
Either way, picking winners is nigh on impossible and the risk is that the government weighs in on the side of tech at the exclusion of others. Our competitive advantage might lie elsewhere and as consumers we benefit from Silicon Valley’s innovations.
Stephen Lamb