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Microsoft Trumps Google, Yahoo! R&D Budgets
Rob writes to mention a Computer Business Review Online article on Microsoft's commitment to out-spend Google and Yahoo! on innovation in the coming year. From the article: "Microsoft Corp will spend over $1bn on R&D just in its MSN unit, for the fiscal year starting in July, chief executive Steve Ballmer told an audience of would-be advertising customers. The money, part of the surprise spending package that recently gave Microsoft's share price its biggest single-day drop in five years, comes as the company struggles to catch up to Yahoo! Inc and Google Inc in the search and online advertising market."
Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got something to say
But nothin comes out when they move they lips
Just a buncha gibberish
And muthafuckas act like they forgot about Vista
So who're they going to buy to get their innovation from then?
Rushes to set up a company "CS Innovation Ltd". A mere snip at $20 million.
Deleted
Is this a case of Microsoft assuming they can throw vast amounts of money at any problem and solve it better than other people?
I mean, nine women can't have a baby in one month. Maybe, just maybe, the reason why Google is out innovating them is they either have smarter people, better development practices, or don't have a bunch of historical baggage of other products they need to slavishly support.
I guess from Microsoft's perspective, it's good to spend money on R&D. Hopefully they'll make better products, and at a minimum they'll probably get to write it off on their taxes.
In the long run though, I wonder if Google won't simply out-do them with fresh thinking, new ways of doing things, and a completely different business model than Microsoft. This may not simply be a matter of keep throwing vast amounts of money at the problem until it becomes easier.
This may require some more fundamental changes.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
They'll do even better when they start out-thinking their competitors.
They've been outspending Apache for years in the webserver market. What are their respective market shares again?
bang goes my karma... again...
Bigger Budget != Better Product
Yes.
This reminds me of an exchange between Thomas Watson of IBM and Seymour Cray of CDC:
"Last week Control data... announced the 6600 system. I understand that in the laboratory developing the system there were only 34 people including the janitor. Of these, 14 are engineers and 4 are programmers.. Contrasting this modest effort with our vast development activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry leadership position by letting someone else offer the world's most powerful computer." - Watson
"It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question." - Cray
It looks like that might happen again...