Why Big Companies Can't Invent the future

  A leading venture capitalist once said "corporations are too slow and timid to capitalize on their own inventions".

  It is said that Thomas Edison's best invention wasn't the light bulb or the record player, but the concept of his research and development labs. Edison's labs provided a way to develop and "market" approximately 1000 products. Others companies had too many administrative restrictions and were never able to see the light of their research. This is why in 1970, Xerox determined that its future was to continue creating printing equipment, while their own research team had discovered early designs on personal computers, Window Operating Systems, Content Sharing, Extranet, etc.. Those discoveries were ten years ahead of its time, and in retrospect, we can see the market that they missed.

  Large companies continue to make gross errors within their administrations, all the while purchasing small companies that have innovative solutions. They perform this action since the concepts are already researched, implemented, and serviced. The large companies proceed to capitalize on what exists, but they seldom achieve the same results on items that do not exist yet. After purchasing smaller companies, they only take over administratively and do not pursue the technology. Most purchase solutions end up in the shadow of their main services, thus a good innovative solution is lost. Thus, it can be perceived that big companies are competition killers, rather than pursuers of new levels of technology.

Big companies will never succeed in the "network services platform", since...
1. The administrator does not want to lose sight of what creates their fortunes.
2. The administrator only focus on one thing; "Account money".
3. The administrator sets too many restrictions on their research labs.

The following lists are big companies and how they are currently dealing with the network services platform:

- Microsoft - (OfficeSuite & IIServer, OfficeLive, SharePoint) "Three choice... they appear to be concerned
   to miss the boat as they did with Internet 1997, or they may be confused about the future."
- Google - (GoogleDoc, GoogleWave) "Offer open source platforms... they are uncertain on how to build the future."
- Yahoo - (no solution) "Do not have an idea about the future; they look to what others are doing, and they attempt to
  create a more attractive version of it."
- IBM - (Computer & Server) "Still using the same formulas; they are too preoccupied with administration and do
  not want to compromise their future."
- SUN - (OpenOffice.org) "his company is always developing for the future, but are not able to implement their ideas,
  so they give their services away for free."
- CISCO - (Webex) "they manufacture network devices, but are unable to see the future beyond hardware;
  although they purchased Webex in 2007, where will they run with it?"
- ORACLE - (no solution) "They only care about the interest of big companies."
- HP - (no solution) "much like Yahoo!, they wait for others to develop the future, and than try taking a share of it."
- XEROX - (no solution) "They missed the boat in 1970, and will more than likely miss all of the others that come sailing by."

  Here is a list of small business competitors, who have initiated the new "network services platform", and have promising futures: Zoho, Jive, CollectiveX, 37signals, Projectspace, Netvibes, Myspace, Delicious, Jolicloud, etc.