
The rise and fall of corporate R&D - akkartik
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8769863
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dqualls
"Corporate R&D; never worked very well in the first place." Huh?!? The first
public fax transmission, the transistor, the first synchronous-sound motion
picture, UNIX, C and C++, low-cost fiber optic phone systems, the first
Wireless LAN, and numerous laser techonologies were all products of Bell
Laboratories corporate R&D;.

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danielha
And a lot of other potential big name developments never saw the light of day
due to the "corporate" part of corporate R&D.; Yes, it is true that corporate
R&D; produced a long lists of greats; however, some of these faced serious
barriers to realization because of the hedging of risks that big companies do.

It's not to say they don't develop great things. What they do, they do well
because they pour their resources into it. It's the daring, wild,
revolutionary ideas that have become uncommon. The smaller company or group of
hackers have become the suppliers of those.

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kingkongrevenge
Corporate R&D; never worked very well in the first place. William Whyte wrote
about how relatively unproductive it was way back in 1956 in The Organization
Man.

