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IBM Chief: All CEOs Reluctant To Invest In R&D

Posted by Soulskill on from the evolving-into-pakleds dept.

theodp writes "In his Centennial Conversation at the Computer History Museum, IBM CEO Sam Palmisano emphasized the importance of investing in R&D, even in a down economy. 'Shareholder expectations for higher returns don't diminish when the economy stutters,' said Sam. 'And yet, Tom Watson Sr. actually increased research investment during the Great Depression.' Palmisano added, 'I will tell you that my own instinctive reflex isn't to continue investing $6 billion a year during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. In that regard, I'm like all CEOs.'"

1 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. CEOs Unwilling Even To Pay For Technical Debt by curmudgeon99 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not only is the modern corporation and its CEO unwilling to pay for R&D, they are unwilling to pay for the Technical Debt of their existing systems.
    Software developers who work in production support know they will only be able to fix individual defects that have been targeted by the business customers. So, any production system becomes a series of code compromises. Developers fix individual issues and never do a broad refactoring of the code base. So, when a developer comes to a page, sees it's a collection of compromise/hacks, there is no stomach from the business to taking the time to refactor the page. So, instead, the developer holds his nose and adds another hack. Horrible.
    So, developers do the refactoring on the sly. If they are really honorable, they come in on their own time and implement architectural improvements on their own dime.
    No one in business understands it idea of Technical Debt and the value in future bugs prevented of paying that debt off.