Inside the Labs At HP, Microsoft and IBM 81
alphadogg writes "At Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and IBM, investment in research and development is a reflection of corporate culture. This three-part piece by the IDG News Service examines the different approaches taken by each of these influential tech companies. Hewlett-Packard prides itself on its pragmatism, while Microsoft holds the flag of basic research aloft — and IBM continues to file more patent applications, year after year, than any other tech company."
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Buzzword advertising.
Ponticac: "we build excitement" (bad brakes, shitty steering)
Ford: "Quality is job 1" (their work's cut out for them)
Chevy: "Like a rock" (damned thing won't start)
Why should the computer industry be any different? If you want to know the worst qualities of any product, look at what they advertise and you'll find it.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
IBM's strategy for patents is not for tech discoveries.
Most of them are for business processes. Totally unenforceable.
So why do they do it? It is the ultimate non-competition agreement.
It really only binds the guys who are on the patent so they don't go to another company and take the business process with them.
Re:IBM patent quality (Score:4, Interesting)
IBM has some patents that are actual innovations, rather than "hmm, lets patent the fact that water is wet and farts smell" type of crap that is all too common these days:
Take the ZTIC. This is simplicity in itself, but if banks actually used a device like this (handed it out to their customers and made them use it), it would essentially stop bank and credit card fraud cold.
Another item is IBM's hard disk research -- this got us from the megabyte drives to the terabyte drives with GMR and other ways to drastically increase the areal density of HDD platters.
The thing that HP, Microsoft, and IBM do is pave the way for others in the field, and often this is lost on people. It takes someone making a battery technology before someone else can make a device that uses it.