..and Microsoft, Atari, Sun, et al sunk billions of dollars into "research" groups with very little to show for it other than a bunch of concept videos and the resumes of the researchers. It's a double-edged sword.
Modern cryptography is based on advances in number theory and abstract algebra. None of the mathematicians over the last 2 centuries who contributed to those advancements foresaw the applications.
Modern GPS satellites are dependent upon general and special relativity. Einstein never foresaw it.
Much of the military industrial spending that funded the creation of Silicon Valley was not specifically targeted at creating the industries that followed.
The whole point of basic R&D is you don't know the economic outcome. It is a quest for knowledge. It may create the next disruptive technology or industry, or, it may not, and just be a another curiosity to be studied by academics.
It's a double edged sword, but why should we want swords with only one edge (short term economic success)?
Microsoft R&D funds for example, like IBM, mathematic researchers. These people are not working on products or applications, they're working on proving theorems.
I don't fault Microsoft for "wasteful" spending. Research and Development is a genetic algorithm for searching the fitness frontier of knowledge space. A whole lot of organisms, or ideas, have to die, before local optima can be broken out of to find the next peak.
There aren't a lot of examples of big tech companies dumping money into R&D - with no end goal in mind - and then cashing out big time. Even companies that that have gotten useful discoveries from hiring smart people to sit around and invent (Bell Labs, Xerox Park, Microsoft Research etc.) don't ever seem to end up raking in the big bucks.
The only thing that comes to mind is MS and their Kinect.
Unfortunately the ROI is pretty bad when you just throw money and hope it gives you results. It's cheaper to just buy up startups with interesting ideas
The only thing that comes to mind is MS and their Kinect.
Um, didn't Primesense develop the imaging sensor used in the Kinect? This seems more of the Apple model of "let's figure out a cool use for this interesting device".
The GPS system would never have been built by any startup, period. It took decades to build up the space based infrastructure and engineering know-how to make it, with the backing of a very deep pocketed government that was looking for results, not for profits.
We need diversity in research approaches. No one is saying that profit-focused R&D is wrong, just that monoculture is. If you've got $100 billion in the bank, do you need to focus all of it on short term projects, or can you try several strategies.
When was the last time a small startup produced a huge breakthrough in physics or manufacturing that did not build off of research funded by the public or big consortiums, corporate labs, or universities?
I don't care if Bell Labs didn't cash out, just like I don't care if NASA, DARPA, or Sandia Labs makes a profit. Quantum Theorists need work too, and Y-Combinator isn't going to fund them.
Yeah, well that's nice that you don't care - but Apple's shareholders do. The point is that this kind of R&D doesn't pay-off. Companies have tried it in the past and it didn't work.
If you want R&D then I completely sympathize, but you'll have to go get your government to fund it - don't expect Apple do it as a charitable donation to society.
PS: Examples like Leap Motion come to mind.
Invented: * DES * Hard Disks * DRAM * RISC * Relational Database * Laser Eye Surgery * Barcodes * PC
Apple shareholders apparently care, because the company is currently being valued as if there are no more disruptive breakthroughs that will produce significant growth in its bottom line.
Also, to say Bell Labs didn't cash out is to be charitable. Ma Bell dominated for decades before the government broke them up. Did they fail because of failure to cash out on inventions, or because Bell Labs was split off from the parent company that was funding them.
Also, if you suggest the government fund it, then maybe the government tax Apple's cash, I wonder how their shareholders will like that?