The IT industry’s overall strength depends on strength across communications, processing, and storage as well as strength in all layers of technology—from the physical layer (including communications hardware, microprocessors, and magnetic and optical storage), to the software infrastructure layers (operating systems and Web services), to software applications.In this era of globalization, many companies are multinational, with operations—including R&D—conducted across the globe. For example, IBM, HP, Qualcomm, and Microsoft all have research facilities in other countries, and many European and Asian companies have research laboratories in the United States. Increasing numbers of businesses compete globally. Every company and every industry must assess the segments and niches in which it operates to remain globally competitive.
Both Asian and European nations are continuing to pursue strategies that exploit perceived U.S. weakness in telecommunications and telecommunications research as a way of improving their competitiveness in telecommunications, as well as in information technology more broadly. Leapfrogging the United States in telecommunications has, in the opinion of the committee, been an explicit and stated strategy for a number of Asian (in broadband and wireless) and European (in wireless) nations for the past decade, with notable success. These efforts have aimed to stimulate the rapid penetration of physical-layer technologies for residential access (broadband access, especially in Asia) and wireless and mobile access (cellular networks, especially in Europe).Telecommunications research is best understood as a seed that germinates, developing into lasting value for the U.S. economy. depicts the research ecosystem and D. Messerschmitt, “Convergence of Computing and Telecommunications: What Are the Implications Today?”
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, Making IT Better: Expanding Information Technology Research to Meet Society’s Needs, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 2000.benefits it enables, many of which are built up recursively over time as a result of interactions among the various levels. The picture is, to be sure, simplified—the interactions between the different elements are more complex than can be reasonably characterized by the diagram— but Figure 1.1 does provide a realistic view of the impacts of research.
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