[ncmncm]

Indeed, suppressing upsets to the status quo was always a major purpose of corporate research labs like IBM Watson Labs, same Xerox, Bell, Kodak.

Corporate would spend any amount patenting things, but shelve every single thing. Innovation upsets the gravy train. So as long as you are on top of the market, change is inherently bad. Even a whole new, unrelated product line competes with existing products if a customer for both might be the same company.

A co-worker once sat listening to execs from EMC chatting about competitive threats: uniquely from other divisions of EMC. With 80% margins on existing product, nothing new looks attractive, nothing outside the company is competition, and it doesn't even matter what outsiders hear.

Such a company also benefits from buying up apparently competing companies and disbanding them or jacking up their prices to match. In the '80s, Mentor Graphics's business model depended on buying and shuttering Cadence-like companies. Cadence was the first one too big to do that to, and MG finally had to figure out another business when the gravy train dried up. They collected lots of rent until then, and the managers left flush and found other crooked opportunities.

It's easy to spot other companies in similar positions, past and present.

[graycat]

Yup, from my experience at one of the organizations you mentioned, I have to "agree with you more than you agree with yourself". Well put.