$ 90 billion does not buy much these days

oh, only 300 of the new Airbus A380s. 300,000 of the new Hummer H3's if GM made those many.

But while customers pay IBM that every year, they are told by Nicholas Donofrio, IBM's executive vice president of innovation and technology "There's no such thing as the next big thing". I understand what he means - it goes beyond technology in to process, business model and other innovations. But coming from the biggest technology vendor, it sounds like a cop-out. Surely for that investment, we should see a Hummer or two.

This follows recent comments by Paul Horn of IBM R&D

"We have a very different corporate culture and corporate focus than Microsoft....Microsoft is sort of where we were at 15 or 20 years ago."

Well, here comes Microsoft targeting IBM. And every entrepreneur in Bangalore, Dalian, Espoo and Silicon Valley who would love to just get crumbs of the $ 90 billion spend. Each can dream of the next big thing even if IBM cannot.

Update: Nick Carr compares Microsoft's new campaign against IBM to the 1984 Apple "Big Brother" campaign.

Dennis Howlett analyzes Donofrio's interview further - some interesting stats on innovation at the IBM workforce level