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Google, Microsoft, Sun to Fund New Internet Lab

Posted by Zonk on from the it's-totally-rad dept.

brajesh writes "Yahoo! News has an AP story about Google, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems coming together to back a new Internet research laboratory aimed at helping entrepreneurs introduce more groundbreaking ideas to a mass audience. The Reliable, Adaptive and Distributed Systems or RAD lab is scheduled to open Thursday and will dole out $1.5 million annually over five years, with each company contributing equally. From the article : 'Conceivably, the lab's services could help launch another revolutionary company like online auctioneer eBay Inc. or even Google, which has emerged as one of the world's most valuable companies just seven years after its inception in a Silicon Valley garage.'"

6 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Cheaper than developing by Divide+By+Zero · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems coming together to back a new Internet research laboratory aimed at helping entrepreneurs introduce more groundbreaking ideas to a mass audience ...so they can buy the rights to it, lock it down, and make it proprietary to their platform.

    It's the American Idol of developers. "We'll let you show off, decide who's best, sign them to a nasty license, and own your soul."

    (Kidding, but only half.)

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    Dare to Hope. Prepare to be Disappointed.
  2. I don't get it... by IAAP · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Sun Microsystems Inc. also is joining the $7.5 million project at the University of California, Berkeley. The Reliable, Adaptive and Distributed Systems, or RAD, lab was scheduled to open Thursday and will dole out $1.5 million annually over five years, with each company contributing equally.

    That's chump change to Microsoft and Google (I don't know about SUN). Why aren't any one of them just funding the whole lab themselves? It's great that Berkely is getting some needed funding, but I think that this may some sort of PR thing. Just my 5 cents.

  3. Bargain by __aahlyu4518 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So for $2.500.000 each they will get access to the brightest ideas concerning the internet in the next 5 years... Is it just me or is that the bargain of the century?

    1. Re:Bargain by kevin_conaway · · Score: 3, Insightful

      .So for $2.500.000 each, they^H^H^H^H everyone will get access to the brightest ideas concerning the internet in the next 5 years... Is it just me or is that the bargain of the century?

      Fixed that for you.

  4. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  5. Oh what a load of bollocks!!! by coralsaw · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I've heard this before, when VISA and MASTERCARD got together to create the one and only mobile payment system, with very limited funding. Which didn't go anywhere because it was underfunded and thus non-committed to by its founder members.

    These people, Google MS and Sun, won't even spit on the ground for $1.5 mil, let alone create a business plan... If they really intended to go beyond window dressing, they should have put their money where their mouth is and pour some real money into it.

    It's an intended failure from the word go. /coralsaw

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    <before>now</before>