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ICT in Europe: crisis or take-off?
Europe is at the centre of attention: it has recently been expanded to 25 States; a new constitution has just been signed; and its industrial competitiveness is questioned again. What is happening to the ICT sector, or, more precisely, to the telecommunications industry? “Rethinking the European ICT agenda” is the title of a recent “tentative and provocative” report commissioned by the Dutch Presidency, aiming to inspire and revitalize the ambitious objective set for Europe in Lisbon, in 2000, to become the “most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010”. The report acknowledges that the Lisbon targets are still far away and identifies and analyses 10 potential breakthroughs to revitalize the Agenda and regain some progress. I am not going to analyze the content of this report, but I would rather add some personal viewpoints to complete the scene. And I would mainly comment on two major issues: the role of R&D and the role of collaboration. The EU Council of Ministers agreed on a common goal to increase the R&D investment up to 3 % of GNP by 2010. Are we moving in that direction? This would imply a long-term strategy. But in the present time everybody seems much more oriented towards short-term visions, rather than looking to the future. Let me summarize the situation with a simple consideration: Who is running the telecommunications sector? Up to twenty years ago it were the telecom engineers; ten years ago marketing experts; 5 years ago regulators; today finance. Who will be the next? Lawyers? And then, is the cycle complete? Excess of finance and lack of R&D investment risk to hinder the mid and long term vision of the future and may, at the same time, slow down the necessary innovation. Even if there is a common belief in the need to increase R&D investments, only very few companies are really moving in this direction. But the problem is even worse. R&D is not only an investment in financial resources, but mainly an investment in human resources; and this is going to be the real difficulty: to find high quality human resources, with enthusiasm, professional skill, managerial capacity and commitment, is more and more difficult in a scenario where students are much more eager for commercial success, rather than for scientific reputation! And now I come to my second point, relevant to collaboration. As Europeans we are all very proud of the GSM success. Digital technology was available worldwide, but Europe wanted to look forward, and its vision allowed to reach unexpected results and to conquer a strong leadership in the sector. The strong commitment of operators and manufacturers created the conditions for a winning solution. Nowadays, a progressive disengagement of operators on collaboration issues, certainly also due to the strong competitive scenario, has again brought up the old problems of IPR issues, with the consequent slowdown of the opportunities offered by new developments such as UMTS, MMS and related services. But in addition to that, a new challenge is arising; the widespread use of Internet and mobility, the broadband boom, the success of flat screens, together with the development of digital TV and videogames, re-focus the attention to the various aspects of “convergence”, which played an important role, even if without success, around ten years ago. The new convergence of TV, telecommunications and entertainment could definitely contribute to re-launch the European economy. I am convinced that it is essential to restore a strong collaboration, involving operators and manufacturers, to avoid the prevailing of short-term objectives, with “branded” solutions, aimed only at specific interests for single companies. A new synergy is therefore necessary, and only this will, in a mid- to long-term perspective, guarantee the maximum benefit for the society as a whole, and an adequate return on investment for the ICT industry. Europe will not necessarily be the technology leader, but could once more be the leader in a new “vision”, and once again achieve a dominant position in the worldwide arena. The report “Rethinking the European ICT agenda” is available for download at www.minez.nl/content.jsp?objectid=24583 Please send us your comments on this article. |
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