Propellerheads (Reason) is Swedish, Ableton and Steinberg are German, ImageLine (Fruity Loops) is Belgian ...

I'm wondering (again), why the Scandinavian (and Benelux) peoples seem to own the software synthesizer and virtual studio business. And why the Free Software alternatives (which you'd imagine would attract enthusiastic contributors) have made little headway against this bastion of proprietary software.

Interesting, Steinberg are actually now owned by Yamaha whereas Boston based Cakewalk (the biggest US based music-software name) are owned by Roland. So Japanese hardware companies have moved in to take over their pure-software rivals.

Bonus question : what became of great British hope SSEYO?