Europe plans bold challenge to Google.

But new multimedia search engine Theseus may end up another doomed EU project.

LONDON - THE European Union (EU) has authorised Germany to start developing a new Internet search engine designed to challenge the US giant Google, which currently dominates online searches.

The proposed German search engine—named Theseus, after a Greek mythological character who used a rope to trace his way through a maze—claims to be a true “killer application” for Google.

Almost everyone knows Google for what it is—a search engine originally conceived as BackRub by its developers, which hit the market in 1998 with backing from rival search engine Yahoo.

Now the world’s most popular online search tool, it gets funding of about S$1.5 billion a year.

In contrast, few details have been released about Theseus as yet.

What is known is that a consortium of more than 30 different German research companies will develop the product which, supposedly, not only classifies online content—something all search engines do—but will also be able to “draw logical conclusions”, creating new links between text, sound and pictures.

The project sounds impressive, but Europe’s recent history has been littered with many technological efforts which consumed a lot of cash, only to end in total failure.

Dr Hartmut Raffler, one of the bosses of the Siemens technology company—which is part of the consortium developing Theseus—said the project “will make it possible to generate new knowledge from what is already available”.

Theseus will become the “world’s most advanced multimedia search for the next-generation Internet”, said another member of the development consortium.

However, if the promise is so great, why are companies not financing it out of their own coffers?

Short answer: This is Europe, where it is always easier to persuade politicians to spend taxpayers’ money on any idea which promises to confront America’s technological prowess.

Back in 1982, for example, Britain and France developed the Minitel, an online service accessible through telephone lines. It was revolutionary then because the French were able to check stock prices, buy train tickets and chat more than a decade before Americans discovered the joys of the Internet.

But the Minitel was state-funded, and bureaucrats knew little about the need for constant innovation. So, far from retaining its lead, France was actually held back from the early adoption of computers due to Minitel terminals which were useful only as museum displays.

Other disasters followed: European computer companies which were meant to take on the likes of IBM or Dell but invariably ended in bankruptcy, and the Galileo system that aimed to provide an alternative to the US Global Positioning System, but had to be rescued last month with the injection of more government money.

The Airbus commercial airliner project is often trumpeted by the Europeans as their success story; it did break Boeing’s monopoly. But it remains the exception rather than the rule.

Given this poor track record, one would have assumed that Europe’s governments would be weary of similar adventures.

But not a bit of it.

The Theseus search engine idea started as a joint project between France and Germany called Quaero (Latin for “I search”).

Quaero was started not so much in response to a serious commercial need as it was to a political desire to catch up with the US.

The two governments had pledged to contribute S$1.1 billion to ‘kick-start’ funding for ‘ice-breaker’ companies.

Now, however, the German government has decided to forge ahead on its own, promising to pay S$250 million.

The French are set to proceed separately with Quaero, and have allocated about S$170 million to that end.

Already, it bears the hallmarks of another potential European flop. And it has already encountered political difficulties.

Theseus’ claim to be able to search inside video and audio clips sounds truly innovative.

However, similar technologies are already being developed by others, and the amount of money the Germans are putting into their effort is paltry compared to Google’s capital spending of around S$1.5 billion a year.

Also, it will take the Germans another five years to complete their effort. Yet neither Google nor other competitors are likely to stand still in the meantime.

So, Theseus may end up as a commercial failure.

Europe’s dream of leapfrogging America’s technological edge can be realised only by improving its entrepreneurial spirit and liberating small companies from reliance on state funding.

What Europe needs is a radical change, not a vain rush for “killer applications” bearing Greek or Latin names from ancient history.

This news article by Jonathan Eyal is extracted from The Straits Times dated July 31st, 2007.

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