Microsoft overtook Google

It is no mystery to anyone that year after year Microsoft invests an important part of its resources in proprietary research, through Microsoft Research and other divisions. But now, thanks to a report from the PwC consultation, we can know how much this research and development spending is compared to what other major companies do.

The figures reveal that Microsoft was the fourth company with the highest investment in R&D, and the third if we consider exclusively the technology sector , being surpassed only by Intel and Samsung (Volkswagen is the one that tops the list).Redmond's total spending in this area amounted to 10.4 billion dollars, which implies an increase of 6.1% compared to fiscal year 2013, and a promotion of 1 position within the ranking.

If we measure this expense as a proportion of total sales, Microsoft invested 13.4%, which positions it as the second company in the sector with the highest proportion of spending on R&D, being only surpassed by Intel, which invested 20.1%.

After Microsoft, the technology companies that follow it in the ranking are Google, with position 9 and 8,000 million investment, Amazon with position 14 and 7 billion investment, and IBM with position 18 Apple is left out of the Top 20 by investing 4,500 million annually (only 2.6% of its sales), with which it obtains place 32.

It's certainly a good thing that Redmond devotes much of its resources to research and development of new technologies. We must also remember that for this expense to be worthwhile it is necessary that research translates into new products and services available to your customers, something we have seen in the launches of the last few years of the company.

That's right, Microsoft seems to have some way to go in terms of communicating and disseminating these innovations, because despite being from a Of the companies with the highest R&D spending, when surveying which companies are the most innovative (page 77), those surveyed by PwC consistently ranked Apple and Google in the top spots, relegating Redmond to number one. 8.

Via | Neowin > PwC (PDF)