Yes, Apple and Microsoft are from a different generation when the rules of business still applied. Even Google is from the tail end of it, although they needed vast VC injections in the beginning and didn't really have a workable business model (but they knew it and saw it as a problem, hence their attempt to sell to Yahoo).

But there were lots of tech firms founded in Europe in the 1980s. ARM is the descendent of Acorn Computers which was the UK's attempt to compete with Apple, and that was just one of many examples. Acorn developed its own computers, its own RISC OS and so on.

If you look at the history of Acorn and the interviews with its founders, one of the things that killed them off was a small home market, very limited ability to sell into Europe and it being too difficult/slow to expand into the USA due to a variety of factors. So a lot of what you see discussed elsewhere on this thread.

And obviously Finland produced Nokia which ruled the roost for a long time in mobile, but again, most Americans don't realize that because Nokia managed to dominate everywhere except the USA, where a variety of structural barriers hindered growth.

SAP dates to that time too, I think. Possibly even earlier.