Booz & Co. recently issued its latest annual Global Innovation 1000 report on R&D spending. The numbers are for 2007 and include not just IT companies, but are still worth a look.
Microsoft, as it was in 2006, ranked 7th on the overall R&D spending list (Toyota is on top with $8.3 billion). Microsoft spend $7.1 billion, up 8.2% from 2006. R&D spending totaled 13.9% of sales.
IBM ranked 13th, down from 10th, with $6.2 billion, up just .08% from 2006. Intel was just behind IBM, down from 12th the year before with $5.8 billion in R&D spending. These were the only 3 IT companies in the top 20.
The report concentrates a lot on the shifting of R&D dollars overseas (and that goes for U.S.-based companies as well as those in Asia and Europe). Booz finds that computer and electronics companies are less likely to send their dollars overseas because of where the customer base is, and more likely to do so to attract talent and new ideas. HP Labs is one organization cited as doing so.
