The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research
matt-welsh.blogspot.com
The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research
1–10 of 18 posts
Re: The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research
#2I do not agree with the author's conclusion that the model of industrial research (MS,HP IBM etc) is broken. We need places in industry to do basic reserach, if everyone was focuses on engineering or product based research (Apple, Google) it is not good for the over all ecosystem. Many inventions are made by pure serendipity we need to give the brilliant minds the freedom to pursue their research based on curiosity and interest.
Re: The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research
#3There is an interesting point-of-view in the comments:
"Microsoft is different because it is a monopoly-supported research lab. The old Bell Labs had a monopoly underneath it to support it: costs AT*T incurred to run it could be charged back to consumers. In this case, the monopoly is windows/office, but that will slowly fade. So my belief is MSR will eventually go down this road, it just may take 10 or 20 years. Some friends of mine there also believe this."
In the past years, I have seen different research works funded by Microsoft Research where is notoriously difficult to use other technologies (e.g. based on FLOSS) than the one distributed by Microsoft. It seems to be a limitation factor to innovation or research because you restrict yourself to an existing technology or product line. Is this still research?
Re: The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research
#4So they're redirecting the money towards universities? That's great -- in principle, at least. Research is their core business.
However, in the current financial/academic climate, I suspect that universities will simply withdraw internal funding from these departments (because, well, the CS guys got their money now) which would result in a net loss.
Re: The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research
#5 These companies can afford to set up big labs with lots of PhDs and
pay them to do whatever the hell they want with little accountability
I dunno about other fields but in my area of work, which is computer architecture, MSR, Intel and IBM have all written important papers that have directly influenced the design of many current-generation microprocessors. So, I'm a bit hesitant to suggest that the labs have failed or that the model is broken. The model could do with some improvement for sure, but then again, what couldn't?
Re: The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research
#6I do not agree with the author's conclusion that the model of industrial research (MS,HP IBM etc) is broken. We need places in industry to do basic reserach, if everyone was focuses on engineering or product based research (Apple, Google) it is not good for the over all ecosystem. Many inventions are made by pure serendipity we need to give the brilliant minds the freedom to pursue their research based on curiosity a…
We do need to pursue it, but a short-term oriented market based system just can't do it. There is too much financial risk in the kind of research that needs to be done. And if you do ever manage to produce anything, everyone else can just copy it. So the best strategy in the market will always be to not spend anything on research and just steal from those who do.
Re: The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research
#7So they're redirecting the money towards universities? That's great -- in principle, at least. Research is their core business. However, in the current financial/academic climate, I suspect that universities will simply withdraw internal funding from these departments (because, well, the CS guys got their money now) which would result in a net loss.
A university that has a reputation for doing this will attract less funding.
This isn't a new phenomenon. Most of the money that comes to successful departments comes from research funding, usually from the big funding agencies, and the risk is more that the university admin lavishes attention and resources on the most visibly successful departments, and so sacrificing breadth and the strength of their interdisciplinary work. Look at the recent Kings College London fiasco for a recent example.
Re: The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research
#8Title: "The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research"
Line 3/4: "I should be clear that not all of Intel Research is closing down -- just the [3] lablets."
...no comment
Re: The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research
#9There is an interesting point-of-view in the comments: "Microsoft is different because it is a monopoly-supported research lab. The old Bell Labs had a monopoly underneath it to support it: costs AT*T incurred to run it could be charged back to consumers. In this case, the monopoly is windows/office, but that will slowly fade. So my belief is MSR will eventually go down this road, it just may take 10 or 20 years. Som…
MSR probably paid for itself with ClearType alone.
But that is a foolish comment; AT&T really was a monopoly, it had the government enforcing that on its behalf. It was effectively a branch of the civil service and its lab an academic department. Windows/Office cash-cow is really no different from IBM's mainframe cash-cow. They're in a dominant market position, sure, they're cash-generative, sure, but if they don't do research, their position becomes ever more uncertain.
Re: The death of Intel Labs and what it means for industrial research
#10I do not agree with the author's conclusion that the model of industrial research (MS,HP IBM etc) is broken. We need places in industry to do basic reserach, if everyone was focuses on engineering or product based research (Apple, Google) it is not good for the over all ecosystem. Many inventions are made by pure serendipity we need to give the brilliant minds the freedom to pursue their research based on curiosity a…
We do need to pursue it, but a short-term oriented market based system just can't do it. There is too much financial risk in the kind of research that needs to be done. And if you do ever manage to produce anything, everyone else can just copy it. So the best strategy in the market will always be to not spend anything on research and just steal from those who do.
Is there a solution to this multiplayer prisoner's dilemma/coordination problem besides government-run research labs? I've never heard one.