[ironchief]

Being the next Bell Labs is both an honour and a disgrace. Bell Labs funded basic sciences which provided much of the technology you see before you today. Certainly this was a great example of corporate research. However, Bell Labs was funded by a government sanctioned monopoly over the telecommunications sector in the US. AT&T repeatedly stifled innovation (see MCI) and abused its monopoly and neglected to implement the research coming outs of its labs (parallel with Xerox).

Google provides an interesting foil to AT&T. They both have/had effective monopolies over a telecommunication sector and large research operations. However, the differences are quite large. Google has not funded basic research on the same level as Bell Labs. It also is more keen to productize the research it does. Additionally, its monopoly is part of an ecosystem of services on the internet and is not as complete as Bells dominance over telephone lines.

Read Tim Wu's "The Master Switch" for a much more complete history of Radio, Television, Film, Phone and Internet communication companies in the USA. It's a fantastic read and provides the background for intelligent conversations about the telecommunications industry.

[joseph_cooney]

Yes. I read "The Master Switch" and being crowned "The New Bell Labs" to me was synonymous with incredible innovation, which is the buried for decades to protect and entrenched position, which I don't think is google's play. For example, see the history of the answering machine and magnetic tape.

http://io9.com/5691604/how-ma-bell-shelved-the-future-for-60...

[dlitwak]

Obviously the analogy breaks down at some point . . . but yes, I will check out that book, thanks!