Sleeping with the enemy?

weekly roundup IBM's head honcho Samuel Palmisano paid Singapore a visit this week, on an invitation from the local government, and in his address to a ballroom packed with IT professionals, he described a future where tech companies will team up to conduct research projects.

Research and development (R&D) is the bread and butter of any IT company that wants to stay ahead of the game and its competitors, so Palmisano's call for deeper collaboration is a surprise since few organizations would be willing to share the key to their competitive edge. But, it does make sense, especially when you consider the amount of resources companies need to allocate to R&D.

For instance, Microsoft, IBM and Hewlett-Packard pour in over US$6 billion, US$6.1 billion and US$3.5 billion, respectively, a year on research and development work. Those are pretty hefty figures, and not all companies have the luxury of dedicating billions of dollars solely on research.

For these businesses, and smaller IT players, collaboration could be their best option. But, should they choose to do so, there are challenges that they need to be mindful about. Patents, for one, would be a key area of consideration. R&D partners will need to decide how the ownership of patents should be divided up.

Organizations may also be more willing to form alliances with companies that are not direct competitors, thus, mitigating any possible concern about sharing their technology and domain expertise.

Would you form an R&D alliance with other industry players, and under what terms and conditions would you do so?

In other news this week, Thailand's ICT sector isn't looking too good and the country's minister hits out at Google. Fujitsu and Singapore's DSI open a new storage networking lab, while Yahoo shuts down auction sites in the U.S. and Canada.