[mytailorisrich]

For a commercial company the aim of R&D is to ship competitive products. You can spend a lot of R&D and do plenty of cool stuff but if you don't ship products you'll go under all the same.

For instance Xerox was doing plenty of cool and innovative stuff with GUIs and the mouse but then it was someone like Jobs (and Bill Gates) that turned that into a hot product. Where's Xerox now? Where's Apple?

In engineering we too often forget that sales and marketing are crucial.

[AlbertCory]

Xerox: I was there. I just published a book [1] about that, written as historical fiction but all facts are accurate. The idea is, you can put yourself into the story without knowing how it turns out. In particular, you can see how something like that can happen.

[1] www.albertcory.io

[blunte]

This last point is key in the modem connected world.

Before internet, you marketed by being in the right places with the right people. Now you have to have a global internet strategy and compete with companies who have nothing but marketing (and funding).

[thrdbndndn]

At least Xerox is still alive and a industry leader in printer business.