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Un long (et bon) article de Netlex à propos du projet de constitution européenne. J'en profite pour créer une catégorie Europe, un sujet qui me passionne depuis longtemps et dont l'absence totale lors de la campagne présidentielle n'a peut-être pas été, selon moi, étrangère à la défaite de Jospin. Mais il n'aura pas été le seul à nous assourdir par ce silence inquiétant des politiques sur un sujet des plus cruciaux.

Je m'efforce de passer sur cette facilité de douter que nos politiques puissent jamais faire avancer l'Europe, eux qui ne savent déjà pas montrer une réelle capacité à diriger le pays, qu'ils soient de tel ou tel parti d'ailleurs. Ce serait renier la politique, et la politique est bien plus que les hommes qui gouvernent à un instant donné. Mais que penser de ceux, qui n'osent ou, pire, ne savent rien nous expliquer à propos de l'Europe ? Vous me direz qu'ils ne savent déjà pas expliquer les retraites, alors l'Europe... Mais que dire des citoyens qui ne savent pas raisonner sans passion sur les sujets qui fâchent ? On tourne en rond. Continuons donc les uns les autres à jouer à "tout le monde il est con, tout le monde il est pas gentil" et quand la France sera définitivement classée dans la catégorie "nuisible, sans intérêt", l'Europe aura au moins réglé son problème de surcharge pondérale.

Air France is definitely stopping the commercial exploitation of Concorde, which will land for the last time at Paris CDG today at 17h45.

[Note aux lecteurs francophones, je me suis très largement inspiré de l'article Concorde entre dans la légende de Netlex chez qui vous trouverez toutes ces infos et bien plus encore.]

The first study of a supersonic plane started in France and the UK in 1958. The 29th of November 1962, the French and British governments signed an agreement to jointly design and build a commercial supersonic plane. The first prototype will flight on March 2, 1969. Other key dates include:

• 25 May 1971, Concorde 01 flights from Toulouse to Dakar in 2h58mn, first intercontinal flight in 2h07 of supersonic flight.
• 20 September 1973, Concorde 02 lands at Dallas Fort-Worth, for its first visit in the USA.
• 26 September 1973, first journey with passengers between Washington and Paris Orly in 3h33mn.
• Air France launches the first regular service on Concorde on January 21, 1976, with two weekly flights between Paris-Dakar-Rio de Janeiro. On the same day, British Airways opens the London-Bahrein line.
• Christmas 1989, Concorde flights from New York to Paris CDG in 2 hours 59 mn 40 s. 20-21 May 1927, Charles Lindbergh on board of the Spirit of Saint Louis made the first non-stop flight between New York and Paris le Bourget in 33 hours and 30 mn for about 5,780 km.
• 12 October 1992, Concorde breaks a record with a tour du monde East to West in 33 hours and 1 minute with a commercial plane.
• 16 August 1995, Concorde breaks another record with 31 hours and 27 minutes for a tour du monde of 40,338 km, this time from West to East.
• 25 July 2000, Concorde F-BTSC crashes at takeoff, killing 113 persons. All Concordes are grounded.
• 24 January 2001, the first modified Concorde (F-BVFB) is tested at Istres.
• 7 November 2001, Concorde commercial flights start again between Paris and New York.

At Mach 2, Concorde will travel 100 km every 3 minutes, a speed of 555 m per second, and burn 1,000 kg of kerosene at an altitude of 18,000 m.

If you want to experience Concorde, your only chance is to book on British Airways, which last Concorde flight is scheduled for the 1st of November 2003. Or you may try to buy one but be ready for heavy travel expenses, as I reckon that one hour of flight will cost you more than 30,000€.

Fingers were crossed. Welcome to Europe, Poland.

The Czechs have massively voted in a referendum yesterday to join the European Union (77,33% in favor of the union). With 10 millions inhabitants, the country will become a member of the EU on May 1st, 2004. Welcome to the Czech Republic!

According to Declan McCullagh, Europe still doesn't get the Internet. What did we do, poor clueless Europeans, to deserve such blame? The Council of Europe is simply on its way to adapt to online publications an old concept called "right of reply", which has been applied to any mass-media in most of the EU members for nearly three decades. And "for better or for worse, Europe lacks a First Amendment and the respect for limited government, private property and free enterprise that America still enjoys."

Oh my!

The last arguments are not only simplistic but false. Since when did Europe oppose private property, enterprise and "limited government" (whatever that means)? They just serve to highlight -- besides sheer ignorance of Europe's historical context and culture -- the very manichean view that McCullagh promotes regarding freedom of expression: in the absence of a First amendment, Europe cannot "get" the Internet. Others would qualify this as typical American mono-culture.

Considering where we come from, our approach of the freedom of expression -- as actually of many thing else -- is a balanced one: "the principle is absolute freedom of expression, and the exceptions are the limits and restrictions on such freedom of expression where a right having comparable weight must be reconciled with the exercise of that freedom." Your freedom ends where mine starts.

We have different views indeed, but regarding freedom of expression, I sustain that France has nothing to envy to the US. Nor does Europe. Living in a country that has a long tradition against discrimination, I fully support our laws against hate speech, racism, vindication of crime or in favor of the right of reply. But this does not prevent me to respect other approaches as long as our motivation and goals towards democracy are identical.

Only those who do not get that have no chance to get something like the Internet.

Via 37Signals quoting MSNBC:

In response to increasingly dire warnings that widespread use of antibiotics on U.S. farms is making the drugs less effective for treating people, the fast-food chain McDonald’s is directing some meat suppliers to stop using antibiotic growth promoters altogether and encouraging others to cut back.

Ironically, France has been under a lot of pressure and commercial threats from the US because it bans the use of those growth promoters in animals raising.

Besides the public health risks induced by this foolish use of antibiotics, the food quality is at stake too. Lots of American friends and colleagues of mine consistently recognize that chicken and beef they get in the US taste like water compared to what they get in France. The reality is as always slightly more complex than that -- you can find excellent quality products in the US and bad ones in France -- but our ban on hormones-fed animals and the abondance of local food markets which raise the bar on quality and lower the prices are obvious reasons why the food is allegedly healthier over here.

I don't know what is the position across the EU regarding this, but with the inclusion of several new countries, the agriculture promises to be one of the hottest and most difficult matters the union will have to face in the next few years. France, with its traditional habit to defend its "cultural exceptions" will face more and more difficulties in a world that has the unfortunate tendency to set standards according to the lowest common denominator.

The EU parliament is about to vote for software patents today. The Register has a good article explaining that geeks don't understand how politicians work. Another related article from ZDNet: European software patents 'a done deal', caught on IPKAT Intellectual Property Weblog.

Update: the vote has been delayed until September, "amid criticism that the legislation would institute a U.S.-style patent regime that would be detrimental to European small businesses and open-source software developers."

The EU has created the statute of European company, dubbed SE for Societas Europeae.

An SE will be able to operate on a European-wide basis and be governed by Community law directly applicable in all Member States. The European Company Statute will be established by two pieces of legislation, namely a Regulation (directly applicable in Member States) establishing the company law rules and a Directive (which will have to be implement in national law in all Member States) on worker involvement.

The goal is to provide a uniform ground (legal, financial, administrative) to reduce the operating costs and burden for pan-European companies. Potential savings in terms of administrative costs were estimated to be up to 30 billion euros per year. This statute has yet to be formally adopted.

The EC announced today that it is giving Microsoft a "last opportunity to comment before concluding its antitrust probe". The wording leaves no ambiguity as what the Commission thinks of Microsoft's abuses of its dominant position:

The European Commission has given Microsoft a final opportunity to comment before it concludes its antitrust probe. The Commission has gathered additional evidence from a wide variety of consumers, suppliers and competitors. This evidence confirms and in many respects bolsters the Commission's earlier finding that Microsoft is leveraging its dominant position from the PC into low-end servers and that Microsoft's tying of Windows Media Player to the Windows PC operating system weakens competition on the merits, stifles product innovation, and ultimately reduces consumer choice. The Commission also invites Microsoft to submit its comments on a series of remedies it intends to impose in order to bring the antitrust infringements it has identified to an end. As this complex investigation draws to a close, the Commission will continue to ensure a meticulous respect of due process. Therefore, the Commission has addressed to Microsoft a final Statement of Objections.

The EC proposes, as remedies, that Microsoft reveals information on its interfaces to competitors in the "low-end servers" market, and stops tying its Windows Media Player into Windows by either not shipping it at all or shipping it along with competitors players.

This press release is silent on delays and consequences of a failure by Microsoft to comply to the EC request, although a big fine is an easy bet.

The Associated Press on Wired News gives some more details on the EU case against Microsoft I reported yesterday, see Microsoft EU Monopoly on Last Leg:

The EU can fine violators up to 10 percent of their worldwide sales -- a figure that could reach into the billions for Microsoft.

[...] The EU will hold off until it sees Microsoft's response, due by the end of September

CNet, Europeans to get Music Stores:

A new pay-by-the-song music service is launching in Western Europe, putting an iTunes-like digital download store inside Microsoft's Windows Media Player

Branded variously as the MSN Music Club and Tiscali Music Club, the service is actually run by online music company OD2, rather than by Microsoft itself. As with Apple Computer's iTunes, the stores will be accessible inside the music-playing software itself. In this case, each may be accessed by a tab in the Windows Media Player premium services section.

I have some doubts about the comparison between WMP and iTunes, but it seems that at a time where Apple only plans to open its music store to U.S.-based Windows users, Europe will enjoy several solutions aimed at Windows users only. You know better Apple, a significant chunk of your revenue has been coming from outside the U.S. for quite some time now.

See also, on The Register: Microsoft beats Apple iTunes Music Store to Europe.

Scaring "domestic terrorism" practices by radical animal-rights extremists against a top San Francisco chef and his use of foie gras, are reported by SFGate.com. I don't think that this sort of violence is serving the cause it is supposed to support. And I have come several times to the same conclusion as Manrique, i.e. free speech is an extremely relative notion in America.

Foie gras is already under scrutinity in many countries as well as by the European Union itself, and could be on the verge of disappearance (although the figures below show the contrary). Israel's Supreme Court has scheduled its ban of production for 2005. Europe has given until 2010 to improve the methods of production in order to improve the animals welfare.

The WSPA notes that:

Animal protection laws in Denmark, Germany, Norway, Poland and Austria specifically prohibit force-feeding. In Switzerland the law against cruelty to animals is interpreted as preventing foie gras production, and in the United Kingdom, successive ministers have stated that it would not be allowed. Despite such laws, many of these countries still import large amounts of foie gras from France.

This highlights the hypocrisy, and to me the real gordian knot around the whole issue, many are condemning force-feeding in their vicinity but many are still willing to pay premium price to eat good foie gras. How many people do belong to both categories, would be an interesting figure to foresee the futur of foie gras.

A few figures:

Egyptians were producing foie gras 4500 years ago. France is by far the first producer of foie gras, with 16,430 tons in 2001 split into 583 T of goose (38% of the whole market for this variety) and 15,847 T of duck (91% of the whole market for this variety). In 2001, France exported 2979 tons of foie gras (+200% since 96) for 63 M€ and imported 2578 tons (+24% since 96) for 36 M€. Imports were from Hungary (60%) and Bulgaria (37%). Spain is the first client with 407 T in 2001 (+16% from 2000), followed by the Benelux with 155 T (+20%), Switzerland (148, stable), Japan (125, +51%), UK (101, -17%), Germany (70, +32%). The US imported 42 T (+56%) and Honk Kong 50 T (+100%). [Source : Etude Filière Gras, novembre 2002, PDF]

Other readings on this subject:

• An excerpt of the summary, conclusion and recommendations from Welfare Aspects of the Production of Foie Gras in Ducks and Geese, a report of the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare (whole report from the EU in PDF, or HTML preview)
• Ongoing initiatives on animal welfare on the farm
• Council Directive 98/58/EC of 20 July 1998 concerning the protection of animals kept for farming purposes
• Grounds for hostilities by Damelon Kimbrough (hat tip for the SFGate.com article)
• (In French) site du Comité Interprofessionnel des Palmipèdes à foie gras

Tomorrow, a protest against software patents in Europe will take place in Brussels. An online protest is organized today by the FFII (Foundation for a Free Internet Infrastructure).

For more information :

• A CNet article


• The FFII home page


• Call for Action

If you are opposed to the adoption of software patents in Europe, sign this petition.

Prof. Lessig, writing about the current fight against software patents in Europe, reminds us of a bit of wisdom coming from nobody else than Bill Gates:

So here’s perhaps the most concise and compelling account of just why software patents will harm new innovators (that’s you Europe) and benefit old innovators (that’s America), written in 1991 by Mr. Gates:
“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete stand-still today. The solution . . . is patent exchanges . . . and patenting as much as we can. . . . A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high: Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors.” Fred Warshofsky, The Patent Wars 170-71 (NY: Wiley 1994).

The EU parliament postponed until September 22 a vote on software patents that was supposed to happen today. A physical demonstration in Brussels, hundreds of online protests and criticism by computer scientists and economists helped raise opposition to this controversial proposition from MEP McCarthy. This is the second time a vote on this proposition is postponed, the first one was in June.

To whoever think that political agenda cannot be changed by peaceful but determined civil action, think again.

EU says science backs its beef ban:

The European Union (EU) says it now has scientific evidence to support its ban on imports of beef raised using growth promoting hormones.

A European Union spokeswoman says it can prove that growth promoting hormones used by cattle farmers in some countries can cause cancer and should therefore be banned.

Roquefort is better for your health :-) [via Edouard]

Just when one thought the EU would have more important things to worry about, a British EU official wants to rename Waterloo Station and Trafalgar Square.

Mozilla Europe launches! Mozilla Europe is a non-profit organization seeking to promote, develop and help deploy Mozilla products in Europe.

Kudos to the team, namely:

• Tristan Nitot, (President)
• Olivier Meunier, (Treasurer)
• Pascal Chevrel, (Secretary General)
• Peter Van der Beken
• Axel Hecht
• Jan Varga

Via the BBC, the EU parliament today passed the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (dubbed as the European DMCA) by 330 votes to 151.

No need to look to far to find the usual suspects:

The European law was shepherded through the European Parliament by MEP Janelly Fourtou, wife of Jean-Rene Fourtou who is boss of media giant Vivendi Universal.

Hopefully, the EU directive has been amended so that action should not be taken against consumers who download music "in good faith" for their own use.

EU members will have 18 months to implement the directive in their local law. Knowing that directives usually have room for interpretation by the members, and in the light of the controversial interpretation by the French MPs of the e-commerce directive, this is doubtless another one that will require close citizen scrutiny when it'll come to our respective parliaments.

OK, I missed her, but she passed (almost) by my window ;-).

French lesson du jour -- Entente (nf) harmony, understanding. Cordial, e (adj.) hearty, warm, cordial. L'Entente Cordiale, The Entente Cordiale (easy!). See, not only we've been able to stand for a century without spilling blood between us, but we even attached that island to the continent. And I even know Brits who like steak tartare and snails.

Tea time.

In March 25, 1957, six founding countries signed the Rome Treaty: France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. They were joined later on by others:

• 9 in 1973: United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark
• 10 in 1981: Greece
• 12 in 1986: Spain and Portugal
• 15 in 1995: Sweden, Austria, Finland

At midnight tonight the European Union will count 25 members, welcoming 10 new countries to this unique space of 450 M inhabitants:

• Cyprus
• Czech Republic
• Estonia
• Hungary
• Lithuania
• Latvia
• Malta
• Poland
• Slovakia
• Slowenia

This represents 20 languages -- the EU portal is already displaying them! -- and the European parliament is looking towards employing up to 500 translators to handle the 380 possible combinations. Translation represents 300 M€, 30% of the EU parliament's budget, a mere 2.5€ per European and one of the unique traits of this multicultural space. However, a negative side effect of the multiplication of languages is to reinforce the supremacy of English. In 2002, among the documents produced by the parliament, 57% were in English and 29% in French (to be compared to 45% and 40% in 1997.)

Discussions are already popping about the next wave, whether to welcome Turkey, whether to stick to the geographical frontier (I'd frankly welcome Morocco before Turkey for example and I find most politicians quite narrow minded when they back down to frontiers and, for the extremists, a supposedly "original christian culture" of Europe.)

Welcome to the new comers. The adoption of our upcoming constitution promises to be a challenging but very interesting moment. Me, I'm really looking forward into seeing the EU go far beyond the initial goal of peace -- that was not and still is not a minor objective -- and become the first cultural, social, political and economical space.

[Via Libération]

Tristan Nitot of Mozilla Europe says NO to software patents:

Software patenting, already in use in the USA, allows established companies to control the innovation of others.

Microsoft has, for example, applied for a patent on "mouse clicking." This is absurd and will be invalidated by the courts.

But in the meantime, who can oppose such an adversary? Microsoft has spent $5.4 billion in legal costs during the past three years.

The European Union is expected to vote at the end of September on a bill aimed at instituting software patents. We are all concerned and this law must be opposed.

You can help as a blogger, by opening your own debate. You can also post this article on your blog and add your signature. If you are not a blogger you may add a comment at this article.

Yours truly has been a long standing opponent of software patents. Even Bill Gates thinks software patents are bad for innovation!

Fight software patents in Europe! This could actually be a strong benefit for us as it would open a space of innovation for software vs. the U.S.

Yes! Those, with their ugly hidden agenda, who wanted to impose software patents without neither a discussion nor a democratic majority in the parliament, have been rebuffed one more time. Proof that public pressure has an effect over lobbies. I truly hope this directive will never see the light, and that Europe will remain free of software patents. With the US slowed down with their broken patent system ("my portfolio is bigger than yours, don't you dare to sue me!"), this could be one of the biggest competitive advantage we can gain from doing nothing to align to the US demands.

Thanks Poland!

MacWorld UK and CNet are both reporting that European Mac fans are upset by the price of the Mac mini on this side of the Atlantic. MacWorld does a better job than CNet in noting that the UK price does include a 17.5% VAT while the $499 US price does not, so contrary of what CNet pretends, the UK price equivalent would not be £268 but £313, i.e. £26 less than the actual price tag of £339. In the Euroland, the price is 499€ VAT included, which in France with its 19.6% VAT translates into 417€ without VAT, which is $545 at today's rate of $1.3065 for 1€. So, for me, the Mac mini is overpriced by Apple by about 9.2%.

Compared to the previous study of Apple European prices I did one year ago, the cushion that Apple adds to protect itself against the currency exchange risks is significantly lower for the hardware than it used to be. However, it's worth noticing that the markup is now higher for software, moving up from 6% to 9%. Looking at the quite wide currency exchange variations, I think those guys are fighting a lost battle. Apple is unlikely to get below 9% to cover for this risk, especially with a product which margin, I reckon, must be ridiculous.

Keep in mind an important cultural difference in price tags between the US and Europe. In the US, where taxes are set by states, price tags never include taxes. In Europe, where VAT is actually a tax mandated by the EU, price tags of all products that are offered to individuals must include VAT -- i.e. advertising a price without VAT to individual consumers is illegal in Europe, while it is the norm in the US. Comparing price tags without adjusting for VAT is stupid, companies are not responsible for the local taxes imposed by states and countries.

The software patents' lobby is playing dirty again, but it's latest coup has failed, again. Slashdot hints that the EU patent directive has been postponed today, and here too we have to thank Poland for preventing this stupid piece to pass at a Council of Agriculture and Fisheries without discussion nor any democratic support of the parliament. Poland was able to get a one week delay, but I hope that this cat and mouse game stops for good and this directive gets back in front of the parliament which, if the representatives stick to their previous stance, will get rid of it.

My intuition is that there is a tremendous economical opportunity in NOT getting into software patents in Europe. While the USPTO will play the game of the big players to burry all competition, we would have a fantastic chance to (re)build a rich and level software business. It's not a surprise that professional open source players (like MySQL AB in Sweden) are clearly against SW patents.

At last, the cat-and-mouse game of the software patent lobbyists is over. FII reports that the European Parliament JURI Committee votes for restart with massive majority:

The Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (JURI) has decided with a large majority to ask the Commission for a renewed referral of the software patents directive. With only two or three votes against and one abstention, the resolution had overwhelming support from the committee, and all-party backing.

The decision is a powerful statement from MEPs that the current Council text, and the logjam of concern it has caused, is simply not a sustainable way forward. It is now up to the Commission to submit a new, or the same, proposal to the Parliament. Parliament will then hold a new first reading, this time under the guidance of Michel Rocard MEP as rapporteur.

And Michel Rocard (former French Prime Minister) did a speech to the commissioner McCreevy that quite clearly explains on which side he stands regarding software patents:

The patentability of software causes problems. Our friends the Americans do not have any legislation on this topic. Their responsible agencies seem to have granted between 100 and 200 000 such patents, validated by lower courts in certain cases. A few complaints are being addressed in front of the Supreme Court currently, due to violation of the Constitution which is penally quite expensive. It's a violation of the Constitution because there is a violation of the freedom of spreading ideas, given that software is nothing but a formula or an collection of mathematical formulas, and because a mathematical formula is an idea expressed in mathematical form ; it seems likely that the Supreme Court is waiting for the European law to be established before it will decide. As such, we are sort of in charge of making the law for the world. One should remember that the main stake is to preserve the liberty to create and use software by individual researchers and SMEs.

Good! Now let's hope the Parliament keeps its stance against those patents.

This wednesday the European parliament will cast its last vote on the issue of software patents in Europe. I hope a majority of MEP will vote in favor of the Buzek-Rocard-Duff amendments (or withdraw it) and save Europe from software patents. Not only this will save us from the nonsense that is going on in the U.S. but it will give Europe, and its numerous open source projects and web startups, a tremendous competitive advantage.

Visit No-e-patents and The Economic Majority for more information.

EU Parliament bins software patent bill, by 648 votes to 14, with 18 abstentions. It's pretty unusual if I'm correct for those sort of things to happen in the European legislative system, but it's not like the Commission has made a good job here, by consistently and patently (if I may) ignoring all the previous votes of the MEP. Reading that "no directive was the best directive we could hope for" tells a lot about this whole affair.

I like Paul Graham's essays, a lot. But I must admit I feel like Jeremy Keith.

Among the many things that our friends from the U.S.A. don't get, are cultural differences. The slogan of the European Union is "United in diversity". I guess that sentence just doesn't make sense for most of them. I know a lot of folks in North America, and the ones who can grasp that concept have extensively travelled outside their continent (when they're not children of immigrants). It's a matter of priorities I guess. When on top of your list are money and oil, your perspective is surely different than when it's peace and quality of life (outside the office, that is). Also the fact that we have entire countries, with their own language, that have barely more inhabitants than Paris must be some kind of mystery for a huge number of people. Funnily enough, it's always from people who can only speak one language: English. And they're still surprised each time they discover it's not even the first language out there.

But can you trust people who think that food is an unfortunate necessity of life --and eating a waste of time-- when it's a pleasure? I really discovered that in New York, where too many folks there seem only fascinated by the "experience" of huge fancy places with obsequious waiters carrying pepper grinders longer than a full baguette, and a lot of other tricks designed to make sure they're not paying attention to the food served there.

Oh well, let's take this with a bit of salt. The French may not go anywhere but my intuition tells me that French isn't going anywhere either ;-). Funny, really.

Until November 28, 2006 there is a petition running against voting machines in Germany which may also be legally signed by Non-Germans. As of today the petition needs about 6,000 more signatures for a public hearing in the petition committee of the German Parliament. Read the explanation in English.

To sign the petition, fill-in the form with the following information:
Name = last name
Vorname = first name
Ort = city
Postleitzahl = zip code
Strasse = street address
Land/Bundesland = country
- click on "Mitzeichnen" after selecting the tickbox just above

You will not receive confirmation by email, but your signature will appear briefly on this list .

The european launch of Apple's iPhone looks difficult if I believe the iPhone Europe status report from MacWorld UK, as well as VNU Net's report about EU operators bemoaning Apple's iPhone arrogance (well, on that one, it's not as if they didn't know what arrogance is, it's a battle of sharks :D).

I do hope that we'll be able to buy it unlocked, so we can swap our own SIM card in and not worry about changing operator. Or, at a very minimum in France, that they'll strike a deal with the two major operators — SFR and Orange (I don't believe Bouygues Telecom and its clients, very small share and hooked on iMode, are an interesting target for this phone) — otherwise I don't predict a big success in a market where competition is fierce among both mobile operators and manufacturers and which is widely different from what Americans are used to. In fact, the American mobile phone market is often rated as "third world" compared to Europe's (I've heard it from many American friends), so it's clear that Apple will have far less merits in succeeding in the US than in Europe. It's easy to make a big impression when the bar is so low.

I bet the smartphone landscape will be very interesting to watch in a quarter, especially offers from Nokia and Sony Ericsson. I also bet that Apple will (sooner rather than later, I hope) come out with a 3G version, or a version 2 that's more competitive/interesting for Europe than its present US-only incarnation.