Press release March 27, 2002

CeBIT 2002 – A Sorry Affair for the German IT Industry
Germany is degenerating into a mere outlet market

Now that the CeBIT 2002 is history and the the slack period slowly turns into a positive mood in the IT industry, the German IT industry presents a dull picture.

Visitors who watched closely could notice that 600 hardware producers from Taiwan had an exhibition stand in Hanover. One of the last producers in Germany, the ELSA AG, was only represented with a makeshift stand and filed for bankruptcy a few weeks ago. On the other hand hundreds of software developers from America exhibited their independent products at the CeBIT. SAP was the only German software producer that left a lasting impression.

Germany, with the most dense network of systems houses, PC dealers and other service providers has degenerated into a mere outlet market. In spite of all this moaning and wailing over the last months developers in America and Taiwan seized the opportunity and created new products. In Germany, however, everybody waited and wavered. It could be clearly felt. Who wanted information at the stand of a German company would hear after about 30 seconds that the poor exhibitor had to carry all the problems of mankind on his shoulders. Of course it was everybody elses fault. The blame was put on the chancellor and on clients that did not want to buy. If you walked on a few meters to an American stand you could settle a deal within half an hour – without taking along a guilty feeling.

The question is how such a situation could develop. The overall mood at the CeBIT was zero innovation, zero venturesomeness and zero feeling for the true problems of the IT users. The root of all the other problems of our IT economy is that the end users are considered to be dumb. They have no clue anyway and want everything for free. And if the user cannot be blamed, it is the fault of Microsoft because they produce bad software and give nobody else a chance with their monopoly.

Germany still has not learned how the IT industry works. By now everybody should have noticed that only a monopoly can survive in the IT industry. But in Germany even mentioning the word "monopoly" is almost a crime. These dull polemics against software patents together with the claim that software cannot be patented has nipped all inventiveness in Germany in the bud.

Patents and industrial rights are crucial in order to be able to place new technologies and applications on the market without pressure. There is no product on the world market that yields a profit in the long term that has not been patented. Are we Germans surprised by this?

Of course there is no patent without an invention. No invention without inventor. No inventors without motivation for inventors. The death of the German inventor of the fax and the copy machine a few weeks ago was only mentioned in a marginal note. If TV presenter and former model Verona Feldbusch says something it is printed in the papers the very next day. Why? Is it the fault of the newspapers? No. We Germans find Verona Feldbusch more exciting than economy. Bill Gates and co. are heroes in their countries and have created entire industries. They guranantee for jobs and prosperity in the long term. And how many jobs were created by Verona Feldbusch?

No shadow without light. Nothing is lost yet. There are enough problems among IT users all over the world that can be solved by us Germans. If, on top of it, we realize that a patent or a monopoly is nothing bad we can build the next IT industry. This will be characterized by nobody in the world having to install software just to protect himself from viruses and nobody in the world needing DSL to get a fast internet connection and so on. However, if we neither change our attitude nor aim high enough the gap will be widening more and more. And if a Siemens manager sets the aim "We now have a market share of 8 percent in the mobile communication business and aim at 10 percent" it is no wonder that the same manager has to close down or sell this line of business sooner or later. Instead of the planned 10 percent he should have announced: "We want to be the world market leader." This is how employees and investors are motivated.