IBM: The 'next big thing' no longer exists, no research for the sake of it

[Deja Q]

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6050056.html

Era of technology breakthroughs for their own sake rather than for profit is over, says innovation exec Nicholas Donofrio...

"The fact is that innovation was a little different in the 20th century. It's not easy (now) to come up with greater and different things," Donofrio said.


Offshore everything. Says nothing new is coming.

And what did people do in the late 1800s anyway, with their tinkering? Profit is a motivator, yes, but if you're not sure what you're going to make will bring in a buck, WHY DO IT AT ALL? That is today's mantra. And there are nearly as many undiscovered goodies today as there were 110 years ago!

110 years ago, people wanted to advance. Research for its own sake. What the hell is wrong with that? x(

6 billion people, we can find them.

Or, unless it's instant profits - like instant gratification - it matters not?

Something stinks.

Heck, IBM does jack splat anyway. It cozies up to Novell and other companies who dare to create and innovate (ala Linux...)

[BlueEyedSon]

1. IBM has vaults full of unused innovations & patents

so maybe the trick is finding markets for those first before developing more stuff

[htuttle]

2. Well, time to close the patent office again -- nothing new to be invented

:eyes:

[salvorhardin]

4. On edit: Calling BS on my own post

There's only one thing wrong with that quote. Charles Duell (whom that quote is attributed to) never said it and I fell for the myth. Here's an article from Skeptical Inquirer that deals with this myth at length:

The investigator, Dr. Eber Jeffery published his findings in the July 1940 Journal of the Patent Office Society.

Jeffery found no evidence that any official or employee of the U.S. Patent Office had ever resigned because he thought there was nothing left to invent. However, Jeffery may have found a clue to the origin of the myth. In his 1843 report to Congress, the then-commissioner of the Patent Office, Henry L. Ellsworth, included the following comment: "The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end." As Jeffery shows, it's evident from the rest of that report that Commissioner Ellsworth was simply using a bit of rhetorical flourish to emphasize that the number of patents was growing at a great rate. Far from considering inventions at an end, he outlined areas in which he expected patent activity to increase, and it is clear that he was making plans for the future.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_3_27/ai_100755224

[physioex]

5. Right.....

Let's just sit back and relax because everything that can be invented, has.....

[ClassWarrior]

3. Greedy corporatists killing the goose to get her golden eggs again.

NGU.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. IBM has had more patents in the last 5 years than any other major

corporation. Nick always was a 'dick'. I image this is staging to drastically cut IBM's Research and Development $6 billion budget to appease the analysts.

[kysrsoze]

7. Is this the same IBM: "We estimate the world market for computers to be 6"

n/t

[BlueEyedSon]

8. Yeah, THAT ibm ("I'm Buying Macintosh")

[Deja Q]

9. IBM just aired a commercial about promoting innovation.

Tell the truth, IBM.

Right now, IBM must stand for "Incontinental Bowel Movement"

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. IBM scientists have won 2 Nobel prizes

Practically no company has done so much for pure research in the past. If they're stepping down from that, it's just that they're joining the rest of the business world.

[Beelzebud]

11. The Personal Computer was invented in a garage.

I would expect the next "big thing" to come from a similar place!