Launch a company

While reading through my previous post 2009 tech pioneers, you may have noticed how many start ups listed in the top 36 were actually based outside the US.

It made me wonder, will America will continue to be the epicenter for entrepreneurship few years from now?

For decades, America has been on the forefront for entrepreneurship and innovation.The best ideas originated here in America, were provided the right level of support from the government, investors, and the consumers to fuel early stage companies into world class companies.

The examples of such successes are numerous. In the software world, American companies pretty much dominate this space with well recognized brands such as Microsoft, Oracle, Google , eBay to name just a few. However, in the changing world landscape and economic conditions, its quite likely that the lead America has enjoyed will likely to face some competition, not just from other developed economies but from emerging economies as well.

That said, America may continue to be the market place of the world..Americans and Corporate America will still continue to be the early adopters of technology. However, there seems to be a shift in the origin of the products/services offered to the American consumers.

Emerging economies like India and China, have traditionally been known for their outsourcing services. While corporate America is raging about the loss of American jobs to such countries, they have to soon wake up to another reality: Companies in such countries are also working furiously towards building innovative technology solutions that are delivered to a world market over the internet.. With a bright talent pool available, companies in India such as Toufee that provides an online tool for easily developing flash movies for your website are just a start.

Governments in various countries such as China, India, Russia, Israel are working hard to provide the level of support required to these companies. Venture capitalists, including some well known US venture capital firms have set up shop there. These countries have some barriers to overcome, but it may be a matter of time..

The first wave of innovation started by following the US lead on innovation, and improvising it for local markets. Chinas Google equivalent Baidu.com is one such example.

However, The internet has flattened the world, and thereby provided the platform for companies all over the world that are plugged in to serve the world marketplace. Take for example, Israels software start up Zend. The company developed Zend Studio, which is a Integrated development Enviroment (IDE) for building Rich internet applications using Ajax.

Do you know of other successful software startups who are based on innovations developed abroad and marketed worldwide?