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Telstra rebuffs R&D criticism

Telstra’s chief technology officer Hugh Bradlow today responded to NICTA CEO David Skellern’s comments that Telstra was 'a disgrace' to the state of research and development in Australia.

“Dr Skellern fundamentally misunderstands Telstra’s business and the nature of the industry for which his institution carries out R&D,” Bradlow told iTnews.

“Telstra is a service provider; it is not a technology research company.

“Basically, Telstra uses world-leading technologies to build networks and platforms that are not only innovative in themselves, but importantly also enable researchers in a wide array of fields to undertake research and drive ground-breaking solutions.”

Bradlow said that that it was wrong to blame companies like Telstra for the state of innovation in Australia.

“Dr Skellern needs to consider what are the root causes of any deficiency in innovation in this country, rather than take uninformed potshots at companies. Telstra invests billions of dollars in the development and construction of underlying platforms of innovation.

“Impediments to innovation in Australia primarily relate to the absence of a climate to encourage investment and risk-taking, and long-standing difficulties in commercialising R&D.

Bradlow said that Telstra was committed to continuing to work with leading technology companies in providing state-of-the-art solutions such as the Next G network, Next IP network, and 'potentially, the National Broadband Network'

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Comments: 6

Why don't we tackle the risk-averse culture of Australia so it can progress? Why just hide behind phobias of failure that Australia seems to have inherited from the first days of settlement.

Posted by Dwight Walker, Sep 24, 2008 4:29 PM

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It should be accepted that we, Australia, are followers, not leaders. Hopefully the R&D debate will end one day.

Posted by Brent, Sep 24, 2008 9:52 PM

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That is well put. When Telstra did have it's own R&D group (TRL) their ideas were borrowed by competitors under the guise of being small and not having the ability to invest in these areas. Now they research the best ways to use existing technologies they are bagged for not making their previously free resources available to the rest of Australia. Allow Telstra to do research and keep it proprietary and I am sure they will invest. How would NICTA (a private research company) feel if all of a sudden all of their great innovations were handed to their major competitors for free?

Posted by Carlos, Sep 24, 2008 10:22 PM

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You've missed the point, Carlos. Skellern didn't bag Telstra for not making their R&D freely available. He said that they should be doing _some_ to help stimulate innovation in Australia.
"...Allow Telstra to do research and keep it proprietary and I am sure they will invest..." What?! They are allowed to now, and have failed to do so. Your issue about IP is a furphy.

While Bradlow's statement about impediments to R&D being due to the investment climate have some basis in fact, this point and his earlier one about Telstra providing platforms and networks for innovation, are transparent whitewash. As Australia's largest company, with annual revenues >$20B, we should expect that they can afford to spend a little piece of that on something innovative and risky. You can nitpick all you want about IP protection issues and innovation investment climate, but the point is that company the size of Telstra could at least make a token effort. Big companies elsewhere in the OECD world do it, ours don't, and until that changes Australia will be an innovation follower rather than a leader.
I'd rather we were the latter.

Posted by PaulM, Sep 25, 2008 11:37 AM

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Posted by PaulM, Sep 25, 2008 11:37 AM

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I think Telstra are missing the point. Even though fantastic advances in technology are able to deliver better products the majority have been developed overseas and there is no other country with the same topology as Australia.
This also raises the question on Telstras capability of delivering the NBN and to what cost.

Posted by Paul, Sep 25, 2008 11:59 AM

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Telstra rebuffs R&D criticism

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