Giving innovation wings

This, some innovators suggest, reflects a somewhat ambivalent attitude to innovation, and to technology, in the upper tiers of government and industry.

The Government wants to help, technology innovators suggest - but they are not really sure how. Zubed for example says that Government departments are among its best and most innovative customers. "But we don't have a clear picture, from Government, of what the focus of the technology world should be," claimed Maynard. "Do they want us to be leading in Web 3.0 or in geospatial technology what is UK plc's core competence? We have a very open market approach to innovation."

Others, however, would argue that that is the UK's greatest strength. In the end, it was not technology that grounded Concorde, that symbol of innovation from the 1960s. It was the business model that could no longer fly.