100x +1. The whole field of query optimization has been devoted to improvement of efficiency and speed of database systems for decades. [1] Academic results are studied quite closely in industry. Also, "academic" includes people like Mike Stonebraker and Andy Pavlo. They aren't exactly slouches regarding issues of performance.
More generally, major waves of performance innovation in the IT field have been driven by advances in storage, compression, vectorization, virtualization, etc. Academic results have led to entirely new products like Vertica (from C-Store [2]) or VMware (from the Disco system [3]).
More generally, major waves of performance innovation in the IT field have been driven by advances in storage, compression, vectorization, virtualization, etc. Academic results have led to entirely new products like Vertica (from C-Store [2]) or VMware (from the Disco system [3]).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_optimization
[2] https://w6113.github.io/files/papers/cstore-vldb05.pdf
[3] http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~15712/papers/bugnion97.pdf
edit: clarity