Arstechnica’s Jon Hannibal Stokes pays homage to the great R&D labs over the years, such as those at AT&T and Xerox, and laments the fact that it is so hard for companies today to sustain such centers for the sort of scientific exploration that can pay dividends down the road. The sort of research that paved the way for many of today’s start-ups and leading tech companies. He does cite Google as one company that’s at least making an effort in this area:
The closest we have today is Google’s “20 percent time,” where engineers are encouraged to spend 20 percent of their time working on whatever research project strikes their fancy. But 20 percent isn’t 100 percent.
Bob Brown, bbrown@nww.com
