Although it feels odd, I’d like to point readers to an interesting thread Slashdot has on corporate R&D. One Slashdotter even highlights that Microsoft will spend roughly $8 billion per year on R&D by 2008. There is also mention of the historical accomplishments of Bell Labs, IBM and Xerox PARC in producing several technological milestones, as well as some new work at Google.

This ties back to my post on the distinction between basic vs. applied research, and how the former predominantly accounts for breakthrough-frontier innovations. The efforts of major corporate R&D divisions, as well as those at smaller but focused companies, contrasts greatly with the kind of part time incremental tinkering we find marketed as "open source innovation" in technology policy today.

posted by Noel Le @ 2:56 PM | Markets: Business, Investment & Innovation

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