Innovation competence dearth in Silicon Valley
The industry which has ruled the world for so many years and that attracted so many people including business men, investors, skill workers for almost 2 decades, is now moving towards decline. Its charm is fading away. Specialists blame short-term thinking and increasing risk aversion two basic reasons behind this turmoil.
In the past valley have experienced lots of hunch times but it dealt well with it to adjust it-self and this is its vitality.
Then what so special this time? Many economist and technologists feel this slouch may lead to the downfall of the industry and they declared lack of innovation and shrinking research work in this field as the cause of this slump.
Companies, Venture Capitalists and new startups are investing money in new less expensive, less risky deals, including social networking portals such as Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and Digg. But the contributions of these ventures are not helpful to deliver sizable productivity gains for business and the nation or to make up a new thing in new core technologies. They are far behind giving breakthroughs to the industry.
The money which companies use to invest in the research based projects in the past has been cut down. Federal Government which used to fund advanced computer science and electrical engineering research projects had dropped its funding to great extent, another creeping distress is that Americans are not interested pursuing computer science degrees.
Beside this, large technology companies also have dragged their emphasis away on basic research in favor of development work because it doesn’t pay quickly and these days they are following the short-term approach.
This is a combined effect that could have huge consequences for the future of American productivity, job growth, and national competitiveness.
The overall picture looks quite disappointing in many terms but there are few exceptions with the likes of Apple, IBM and Google. The invention of iPhone by Apple, Cloud computing by Google and revolution in microprocessor design by Intel are the few examples where extensive research work is still being done.
But they are only few and others are contributing in fading the magic of Silicon Valley.
The apparent attitude draws the picture that there exist shortsightedness and shortage of ambition on the part of today's Valley-ites. Companies these days are up to the famous classical concept i.e. "exit strategy." The owners of new companies plan to sell out their companies to the highest bidder rather than trying to build important companies over a long period. The sufferers are asking this question Can any of today's startups measure up to the giants of the Valley? Can any become the next Intel, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle (ORCL), Apple, or Google? It's hard for some to imagine. These Web 2.0 companies are surfing on the old wave. They're not creating the next one. So the situation is that the already established companies are doing research and new entrants are not looking interested as well as focused on that. But the problem is that, established companies have more interest in selling the products which they already have produced and they often found hesitant to initiate new technologies because that may upset their existing businesses. There are new starters, who usually come up with the technological breakthroughs and that push established companies to new achievements.
Microsoft took a revolutionary turn in last few years. Primarily it was the seller of copied, packaged, and improved technologies invented by others. But Netscape incident has changed the world for them. Microsoft was forced to reinvent itself and its software. The company now invests heavily in basic computer science research and employs 1,000 PhDs in labs around the world.
This is really a time to think for the stakeholders of Silicon Valley, may be government funding could help. But something must be done on immediate basis otherwise US Government will have to announce some bail-out package for their IT Industry as well.
In the past valley have experienced lots of hunch times but it dealt well with it to adjust it-self and this is its vitality.
Then what so special this time? Many economist and technologists feel this slouch may lead to the downfall of the industry and they declared lack of innovation and shrinking research work in this field as the cause of this slump.
Companies, Venture Capitalists and new startups are investing money in new less expensive, less risky deals, including social networking portals such as Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and Digg. But the contributions of these ventures are not helpful to deliver sizable productivity gains for business and the nation or to make up a new thing in new core technologies. They are far behind giving breakthroughs to the industry.
The money which companies use to invest in the research based projects in the past has been cut down. Federal Government which used to fund advanced computer science and electrical engineering research projects had dropped its funding to great extent, another creeping distress is that Americans are not interested pursuing computer science degrees.
Beside this, large technology companies also have dragged their emphasis away on basic research in favor of development work because it doesn’t pay quickly and these days they are following the short-term approach.
This is a combined effect that could have huge consequences for the future of American productivity, job growth, and national competitiveness.
The overall picture looks quite disappointing in many terms but there are few exceptions with the likes of Apple, IBM and Google. The invention of iPhone by Apple, Cloud computing by Google and revolution in microprocessor design by Intel are the few examples where extensive research work is still being done.
But they are only few and others are contributing in fading the magic of Silicon Valley.
The apparent attitude draws the picture that there exist shortsightedness and shortage of ambition on the part of today's Valley-ites. Companies these days are up to the famous classical concept i.e. "exit strategy." The owners of new companies plan to sell out their companies to the highest bidder rather than trying to build important companies over a long period. The sufferers are asking this question Can any of today's startups measure up to the giants of the Valley? Can any become the next Intel, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle (ORCL), Apple, or Google? It's hard for some to imagine. These Web 2.0 companies are surfing on the old wave. They're not creating the next one. So the situation is that the already established companies are doing research and new entrants are not looking interested as well as focused on that. But the problem is that, established companies have more interest in selling the products which they already have produced and they often found hesitant to initiate new technologies because that may upset their existing businesses. There are new starters, who usually come up with the technological breakthroughs and that push established companies to new achievements.
Microsoft took a revolutionary turn in last few years. Primarily it was the seller of copied, packaged, and improved technologies invented by others. But Netscape incident has changed the world for them. Microsoft was forced to reinvent itself and its software. The company now invests heavily in basic computer science research and employs 1,000 PhDs in labs around the world.
This is really a time to think for the stakeholders of Silicon Valley, may be government funding could help. But something must be done on immediate basis otherwise US Government will have to announce some bail-out package for their IT Industry as well.
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