Red Herring has a special issue about Europe and Innovation that is very valuable. One of the take there is about the fact that more and more entrepreneurs and VCx are taking Europe as a serious place to innovate and invest. Some of the advantages:

“The talent is here and the ability to innovate and develop innovative companies is not exclusive to the U.S.,” Ms. Gibbons said.

Broadband and Internet technologies have allowed Europe to seek outside help from developing countries to create software and services, said Peter Ohnemus, CEO of software maker ASSET4.

“I believe if you combine the European market with India [and China], it works as a great combination,” Mr. Ohnemus said. (...) Europe’s strength lies in companies that will converge the worlds of PCs and mobile, as broadband and mobile penetration is one of the highest in the world.

Innovation is then shared between new products (as Skype and MySQL) and "me too" strategy" of copying American products. The list of companies is a quite interesting way of gathering insights about innovative european companies like NetVibes, Echovox, Total Immersion, FON.

Why do I blog this? I am interested in innovation in Europe; having an "ecology" of innovative organizations and structure is important.