Jos,

>To call Philips a Dutch company is really ignoring the trans-national / international nature that this company really is. It is not Dutch anymore.

Their main quarters still is in eindhoven and those innovative inventions were dutch AFAIK. Every big companies like Philips and Shell are called multinationals implying they reside in many countries.

>>>Picking a few subjective examples to back up an already silly statement. The US is clearly a huge source of innovation in a large number of fields. It's not all research done by others with US funding. (But even if it were it shows that the US apparently know how to make the money :)
>>
>>The US by its size probably has developped numerous innovative technologies. I have trouble to think of specific ones. My statement is however that innovation does not neccesarely happen in the US, and certainly not more than elsewhere. There certainly are areas where the US is NOT innovative.
>
>For every example you give I am sure there are many examples where the US lead the way or are #2 or #3; NASA, science, biology, genetics, software, computers, space exploration, military, semi-conductors, astronomy, hollywood, sport science, etc. Which country garners the most Nobel prizes in the various categories might be an interesting metric.

I'm not disputing that at all however, innovation in itself is not about inventing or discovering, but applying it to the mass. It is very difficult, if not, impossible to measure that, esspecially because there are so many fields on which innovations take place. My reaction however is directed towards those who think that innovation does take place in the US. It is pure ignorance about what happens elsewhere in the world.

Walter,