[ale] inventing the future: university vs corp

[Jim Philips]

I don't know that I would say it's all one or the other. But
universities are certainly freer to conduct research without being under
the gun to prduce a profit. I was at Ohio State in the 80's and a lot of
technology that was being researched there at the time is now
mainstream. I know specifically that pioneering work in fiber optics and
computer animation were being done. Ohio State was also the first place
I saw a CD being used for data storage instead of music. The nationwide
library catloging system, OCLC, was also a spinoff of work begun at Ohio
State. I'm just citing examples from the school I know, but there are
hundreds of examples like these from around the country. Imagine how
many you could cite from MIT, Georgia Tech and Stanford! Corporations
tend to install the tried and true and, with a few exceptions, aren't
spending on research the way they once did. To learn the stable and
mainstream, look to corporate America. To work with pioneering
technologies, look to the universities.


On Wed, 2002-04-03 at 10:41, Cade Thacker wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I was involved in an interesting conversation the other day with a fellow
> geek friend, and the question came up of who was really shaping the
> future of computing, Universities or Corporations. There are so many
> levels to the question that it is not even funny, (hardware vs software,
> low-level(kernel) vs high level(TurboTax), etc), and also Open Source is
> obviously having a strong a(e)ffect(can never remember which to use ;).
> But we were more concentration on true career choices. Open source is
> great, but hacking on jboss does not put food on the table, although the
> skills you learn may lead to a better job. (but that is a whole different
> discussion).
> 
> So here is the question: In terms of a career which feeds your family, but
> also challenges the mind, who is shaping the future, University Research
> or Corporations?
> 
> cade was here
> 
> 
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