SAP, the enterprise software giant, has been one of Germany's glowing stars for many years. It is the largest enterprise software company in the world, and the third-largest software company overall.

Many initially found its success surprising. While German engineering expertise has always been admired, those capabilities have been on the industrial and civil side, not computing. In other words, old world industries.

SAP, on the other hand, gradually showed its new world capabilities could not only sell well into a home market but could handily make it an international player as well.

Founded in Mannheim in 1972 (SAP stood for Systems Analysis and Program Development), SAP went public in 1989. Now, the company has 29,000 employees, revenues of $7 billion, net income of just over $1 billion and claims more than 12 million users of its software.

Asked if Germany could ever produce another SAP - meaning, an internationally successful technology company - SAP executive board member and president of global field operations Mr Leo Apotheker pauses and considers.

"I think in many Western European countries, you could ask the same thing," he says. "Europe - excluding the UK - is a risk-averse environment." Such an anti-entrepreneurial climate has developed over decades and, in some ways, has become ingrained in European culture, he thinks, the result of state governments taking protective roles towards workers and industry.

"We need a better environment that is a mix between having a social conscience and a risk-supportive structure," says German-born Mr Apotheker, who speaks five languages and has a degree in international relations.

The current reluctance of European governments to see risk as central to business success is "an act of collective pessimism. And if you add that all the borders are now closed - it's an act of collective egoism," he says.

He feels strongly that the worst way for Europe to go if it wants to remain competitive is to restrict immigrants. Europe's low birthrate means the population not only can no longer replace itself, but the workforce will begin to decline. Europe will lose its ability to compete economically, while also being shouldered with the cost of supporting an aging population on a steadily decreasing tax base.

In other words, Europe will not produce any further SAPs unless it welcomes the immigrants whose children will be Europe's future employees - and Europe's future entrepreneurs.