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What Fruits Will Reduced R&D Bear For The U.S.?
lucabrasi999 writes "Here's an interesting
commentary from Mike Tarsala at CBS.Marketwatch.com regarding R&D spending by U.S. companies as it compares to overseas firms. It compares today's US tech firms to the Big Three Automakers of the 70's, while saying the overseas tech firms are similar to the Toyotas and Hondas of the 70's. In other words, US Tech firms are about to be taught a lesson in global capitalism. I think Mike is 100% correct. What do you think?"
Patent litigation. Developing patents then sueing people for using them is going to be the next real business. Forget innovating, we can sue people and get quicker rests at much higher profit margins!
Someone will then patent a "patent trial" and then put an end to it all. (And not a good thing either - it'll be the end of innovation in America)
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
At the company that I work, we've been constantly telling our R&D departments that they shouldn't worry about the down-turn because we are here for the long-run, and we aren't going to rob profits tomorrow to make analysts happy today. That is until we had 8 straight losing quarters (about to be 9, with rumors of $7-900 million lost this last quarter running around the plant), dropping from $3 billion in cash to borrowing $500 mil. And cutting 10% of the workforce via layoffs. At this point we simply can't *afford* to think soley long-term, we need to be thinking in terms of "what will keep the lights on for the next year?". It sucks, but sometimes that's the way it has to be.