Failure to innovate
impactnow
1/24/2012 10:02:35 AM
AskAsa all too true remember the story of the VCR?
stillborn ideas
AskAsa
1/24/2012 9:56:42 AM
Sometimes the profit motive strangles ideas.
Beautiful sounding, static free FM Radio was demonstrated to David Sarnoff of NBC during the middle of an electrical storm so he could hear the fantastic quality of it.
Sarnoff immediately moved to strangle the idea because he had hundreds of thousands of AM Radios sitting in warehouses waiting to sold. Lawsuits were filed. Years and millions of dollars in legal fees later the inventor of FM jumped to his death in despair.
Sarnoff sat on fm until all his am radios were sold and had the nerve to portray himself as one of the great innovators of the century.
Who funds innovation?
ProfR
1/24/2012 7:33:01 AM
Value Hiker,
It is true that a lot of the early innovation came from passion rather than profit motives by the researchers. However, the funding for research at AT&T, Xerox, etc. came because these companies made money and chose to fund some basic research. Few companies can afford to do that today.
Re: Fear?
Jacob
1/24/2012 12:21:58 AM
Copyright and piracy are serious issue with the music and movie industry. Now a day's its true for software also. Last year Microsoft claims about a huge revenue loss through pirated software copies of different Microsoft products.
In human history, few great innovations were done by pursuing of profit. Most of them are either by ardent passion or pure interests. Think about these scientisits who worked at Bell Labs & Xerox PARC, their innovations are the basis of the whole IT industry. But neither AT&T, nor Xeorx funded the research for meeting short term profit goals.
ProfR, I am not sure who should pay for it, but it seems we all pay the price for the lack of it.
I know that companies used to fuel much of the innovation in this country, now it seems that most of it comes out of our research universities.
Re: Fear?
ProfR
1/23/2012 4:55:13 PM
I think you are right. There is less and less reason for companies to innovate. You can already see this in the dearth of really good new ideas. So who pays for innovation?
For those moguls at Media companies, I guess Howard Aiken was right. What separated Steve Jobs from the rest of the pack is his talent to recognize the original ideas and integrate them into Apple's product --- while others were not even taking serious thought about these ideas
Given how patent wars seem to be going in this country I sometimes feel like the age of innovation is over and we are in the age of steal and sue.
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