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Comment by pedalpete | Hacker News Reader

In a volatile industry like technology, where a competitors industry changing technology can destroy your profitability in a very short time (eg. Nokia, RIM, Yahoo!, etc) does it make sense for Apple to double down on research with this 'excess cash'?

It seems Apple spends considerably less effort on the long-term research like Google and Microsoft. In Microsoft's case, it may be some of these longer range technologies which will keep it relevant, for Google, it seems their research may keep them growing.

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Apple is far more efficient than companies like Google or Microsoft when it comes to reasearch. In the last 15 years, they have produced the iPod, iPhone, iPad, radically different computer designs, OS X, Final Cut, and quite a few other products.

Over the same period, google has produced PageRank. Microsoft has produced nothing innovative.

Apple pays less of its revenue in R&D, but that's because its revenue is so big.

Microsoft has produced nothing innovative.

The Kinect was pretty cool.

> Over the same period, google has produced PageRank. Microsoft has produced nothing innovative.

What are you, an idiot? Seriously.

EDIT: Downvote away, I stand by my comment - parent has got to be the dumbest thing I've read on HN for a while and deserves to be called out on it.

It's a very fanboyish argument, I agree. Self driving cars don't fund themselves.

Where's Apple's equivalent to MSR[1]? I found ATG[2], but closed by Jobs in 97. Microsoft does a huge amount of research, and publishes tons of papers. Google publishes papers, too. Does Apple do that kind of stuff at all? Perhaps work on LLVM and stuff.

Maybe you mean Apple's done a better job of bringing products to market, which is probably arguably true.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Research 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Group

What has MSR done for me (or hell, even Microsoft) lately? Has any of their research been applied into usable value or changed the scope of human knowledge for the rest of us?

I seriously want to know.

I think you might be slightly underestimating what Google has produced[1] in its 15 year lifetime.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Google_products

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