But this trend also had a downside. The strength of this model was reinforced by the federal government's wartime mobilization of scientists from universities and corporations, coordinated through Vannevar Bush's Office of Scientific Research and Development. This model resulted in tremendous technological breakthroughs from the atomic bomb to the semiconductor, nylon and the magnetic disk drive. However, the model has also shown great weaknesses. We now know that companies with strong market positions often have selfish reasons to slow down or even bury promising technologies.
Many companies leave numerous patented technologies sitting on the shelf.
These downsides fit uncomfortably well with Schumpeter's view of innovation bureaucrats. That's a bad bargain. Instead, other firms who invested little or nothing in the basic science stole a march on the inventing firm, got it to market first and made most of the money from the research. While IBM pioneered the concepts behind the relational database, it has ceded market leadership to Oracle. While Xerox funded tremendously innovative work in user interface technologies, Apple and Microsoft scooped up the profits.