Sep-17-10 By Amrat
In a world of knowledge spillovers, open innovation asserts that knowledge that is external to a company and therefore can be profitably exploited if matched to the firm's core competencies. The basic idea is that the boundaries between a firm and its environment have become more permeable, so innovations can transfer inward and outward. In a similar manner, unused or under-exploited internal knowledge can create revenues if properly disseminated to third parties, i.e., through licensing, joint ventures, spin-offs, etc. IBM used this concept of Open Innovation perfectly to create the Eclipse platform, where competing companies are invited to co-operate inside an open innovation network.
The eclipse community has established a model for multiple corporations to create innovation networks. The open innovation paradigm treats R&D as open system. IBM is reinventing the way it innovates. The decision to invite outsiders and open up the innovation process reflects one of the most intriguing concepts in the corporate strategy today. IBM has built what it calls an “open ecosystem” of chip R&D with many partners like advance micro devices Sony, Toshiba and Albany nanotech etc.