Microsoft Dedicates More Money To R&D Than IBM

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.cbronline.com/currentnews/b10ee515e01e6ab080256e6200385df5' target='_blank'>http://www.cbronline.com/currentnews/b10ee515e01e6ab080256e6200385df5</a><br /><br /></div>"Bill Gates came out swinging against IBM Corp and mobile competitors Nokia Corp and Palm yesterday, highlighting record spending on R&D to help drive "seamless computing." Microsoft's chief software architect said his company is not just outspending technology leviathan IBM but that Microsoft is dedicating all its money to software, to the benefit of end users and developers, while IBM funds both hardware and software. The majority of Microsoft's future spending will go into Windows, Office and Visual Studio, according to Gates. Microsoft has told financial analysts it would spend $6.9bn on R&D during the company's current fiscal year, up from $4.3bn last year. IBM's annual R&D is around $5bn."<br /><br />From what I have seen and read about from day 1 at MDC, I think Microsoft is on the right path here.

[dh]

I don't quite see the point here. Since Microsoft only produces software it's kind of obvious they won't be spending R&D money on hardware in the way that IBM has to.

They are also a slightly larger company than Palm ( the combined pa1mOne and PalmSource is probably not as big as the landscaping budget at MS) so wouldn't one expect MS to spend more on development?

I don't know the relative size of Nokia compared to MS, but they still beat the shyte of them every year in the mobile arena.

What is important is whether the mobile products program at MS has had it's budget increased to $2.55 this year, with the improvements in WM2003SE maybe it has.

And what about that new PPCPE over at PPCT? Smartphone size and proper OS - now that is interesting :D

[TANKERx]

Typical of Bill to come out with his version of the truth.

As has been said, Microsoft has more money (made through desktop monopolisation) to spend on R&D (kind of makes me wonder why I have so much trouble with my SPV and MPX if so much money has been spent researching them - my MPPx200 is in the post for repairs after only a month).

What would be interesting is to see what percentage of Microsoft's net income is spent on R&D when compared to the more experienced market leaders like Nokia.

[Mike Temporale]

my MPPx200 is in the post for repairs after only a month

Well, that would be Motorola's fault, not Microsofts. Unless the OS somehow malfunctioned and killed your phone. :wink:

What would be interesting is to see what percentage of Microsoft's net income is spent on R&D when compared to the more experienced market leaders like Nokia.

Agreed. This would be very interesting to know. I think IBM was used because they had a recent announcement with Nokia where the two said they would work together to make the Mobile Office a reailty. So my thoughts are that Microsoft selected IBM's R&D numbers because Nokia's would be harder to determine. How much of Nokia's R&D goes into software? Anything? Does all the software R&D come from Symbian? I think the Nokia side is a little messy, so they went with IBM. just my thoughts.