Some with long memories will remember the seminal innovations that were commercialized after incubation at Xeros PARC. Others might even have forgotten the many significant innovations developed inside AT&T Bell Laboratories.
Those with long enough memories also might agree that when the profit began to be ripped out of the telecommunications and information processing industries, such long-time-horizon incubators of seminal technologies became virtually impossible to support.
Increasingly, the focus of research acquired a more-urgent, quicker time to market character, with less support for innovations that might, or might not, result in new products with a commercial character.
But one might make an argument that, under chastened circumstances, the closest thing we now have to the legendary PARC or Bell Labs is Google.
That will frighten some, and cheer others. But some of us would have a hard time identifying any other entity that is doing work of such long-range potential that no commercial results could occur within a decade.
No comments:
Post a Comment