Friday, February 13, 2009

R&D suffers

Microsoft was recently awarded its 10,000th patent so you think people would be happy to be invest in a company that places such a high premium on innovation. Not so much. SlashDot reports that Microsoft shareholders are cross that the company is spending billions of dollars annually on "pointless" R&D - when Apple is making the same revenue gains with one-tenth the spend on research. Not sure how the news that the entire Flight Simulator development team at Microsoft being let go will be received by them. Meanwhile, over at Sega, the development budget has been slashed by 20% and other cost-cutting measures are being put in place.
Of course, you have to wonder if all R&D and innovation is worthwhile. Designer Steve Lee has come up with what he calls the "most pretentious keyboard in existence ... but it's damn nice looking" ie he's taken to a new Apple keyboard with a can of paint so he has a completely white keyboard with some character but no characters. Probably works best if you're a touch typist (as he is).

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