Innovation needs partners, says IBM

"By a factor of two to one it's internal obstacles," Marc Chapman, global leader of IBM's Strategy & Change Practice, said of the obstacles facing corporations that want to innovate. Among the internal hurdles: an unsupportive culture, limited funding, internal workforce issues, and an inflexible infrastructure.

Pointing to its own Global CEO Study 2006, in which IBM reveals the results of more than 750 face-to-face, hour-long interviews with CEOs in various industries worldwide, Chapman said that collaborations were found to foster revenue growth at corporations. That message isn't lost on CEOs. The study found that 65 per cent of CEOs expect to make fundamental changes to their organisations over the next two years, but only 15 per cent say they have handled such changes very successfully in the past.

This is leading to some dramatic shifts within corporations. Outperforming companies that source ideas outside are innovating their business model in addition to their products and technologies. CEOs are undergoing fundamental changes of mind regarding how to make their companies more innovative. Collaboration has become indispensable.

According to IBM's report, three industries – media and entertainment, telecommunications, and chemicals/petroleum – source more than 50 per cent of their ideas from outside, and another nine industries source more than 40 per cent from outside.

The collaboration gap

Still, there's a lot of room to expand outside ties.

"The collaboration gap looms large in the mind of the CEO," said Chapman. "The limits of collaboration are not near being met. CEOS will continue to look for more over the next few years, which is good."

He said CEOs agree it's crucial to integrate business and technology. Some 61 per cent of CEOs are anxious about their ability to change and innovate, and they are opening up to innovating their business model.

"This is a long-term view of innovation," said Chapman. "The innovation horizon is expanding. This could last 20-30 years."

Bharti Telecom India, for example, has innovated its business model by collaborating with IBM, Ericsson, Nokia and Siemens. "Bharti Telecom has captured about 1 million customers a month with a variable business model that accounts for the ups and downs of the industry," Chapman said.

IBM itself has formed outside partnerships with companies including competitor Microsoft, with which it has a gaming agreement.

IBM also recently opened up more of its patents to outsiders, and other companies have followed suit. Last year IBM opened some 500 software patents on open-source software like Linux to spark innovation (see Science|Business article). The new patent opening plan calls for IBM to publish its patent filings online. The aim is to cut patent infringement lawsuits and to stimulate innovation. IBM also has been opening innovation centres worldwide, the most recent in Kuala Lumpur.

Innovation through standards

While opening patents may be one way to innovate, working with industry standards is another. The relatively new field of software defined radio (SDR) uses a single wireless device such as a mobile phone to support a wide array of functions that usually require multiple wireless devices such as a GPS, wireless Internet access, an HDTV receiver and an AM/FM receiver. SDR does this by using signal processing software that is written as a portable application-level program running on top of a standard operating system. It thus can work with multiple standards. That means a mobile phone could easily be used in both the United States and Europe, for example.

Parts of the technology still are emerging. SDR has two aspects: flexibility and agility, said John Chapin, chief technology officer of SDR company Vanu Inc., in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Flexibility is the transmission and reception of different wave forms such as digital and analogue, and it is a reality now. The other aspect, agility, means transmission and reception at many different frequencies, and that still is an emerging technology. "It will take years to increase bandwidth for agility," Chapin said. "There also are problems such as antenna gain."

The biggest challenge for SDR competitors will be software, both its quality and its cost reduction. "The winners and losers in this field will be differentiated by the quality of their software going forward," Chapin said. "Software cost reduction must be a primary design goal."

Stretchable skin, electronic bookmarks

The MIT emerging technologies conference, sponsored by Technology Review, also featured developments by young innovators such as Joshua Schachter, 32, named innovator of the year for scientists under age 35. Schachter is known for his bookmarking system called del.icio.us, which lets users store and organise their long lists of Internet links that don't fit into their "Favorites" folder.

Another young innovator, Stephanie Lancour, research project manager at the University of Cambridge in England, developed stretchable electronic skin includes electronics placed onto a plastic, thin foil or even a rubber substrate. The aim is to eventually devise flexible electronic skin that can be easily stretched and relaxed. The skin can be put on something that isn't flat such as a prosthetic for an eyeball or on round computer displays.