Major U.S. companies are cutting jobs and wages. But many are still spending on innovation.
Wary of emerging from the recession with obsolete products, big U.S. companies spent nearly as much on research and development in the dismal last quarter of 2008 as they did a year earlier, even as their revenue fell 7.7%, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The sampling looked at 28 of the largest U.S. R&D spenders, excluding deeply troubled auto makers and the drug industry, where R&D spending is dictated by government requirements.
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R&D spending among sampled companies
R&D/Revenue
| 4Q08 | 4Q07 | 4Q08 R&D |
| Microsoft | 14% | 12% | $2.29 billion |
| J&J | 14% | 15% | 2.11 |
| IBM | 5% | 4.5% | 1.53 |
| Intel | 16% | 14% | 1.32 |
| Cisco | 14% | 135 | 1.28 |
| Motorola | 14% | 10% | 1.01 |
| Boeing | 6.5% | 5% | 0.96 |
| HP | 2.5% | 3% | 0.73 |
| Abbott | 9% | 9% | 0.73 |
| Oracle | 11% | 12% | 0.65 |
| Qualcomm | 24% | 21% | 0.60 |
| Caterpillar | 3% | 2% | 0.51 |
| UT | 3% | 2.5% | 0.49 |
| AMD | 40% | 26% | 0.47 |
| EMC | 11% | 10.5% | 0.43 |
| TI | 17% | 14.5% | 0.43 |
| Sun | 12.5% | 12.5% | 0.41 |
| Broadcom | 34% | 36% | 0.38 |
| 3M | 6% | 5.5% | 0.35 |
| DuPont | 5.5% | 5% | 0.34 |
| Medtronic | 9.5% | 9.9% | 0.34 |
| Dow Chem | 2.5% | 2% | 0.31 |
| Elect. Arts | 18.5% | 21% | 0.30 |
| Yahoo | 15.5% | 16% | 0.28 |
| Freescale | 29.5% | 19% | 0.28 |
| Boston Sci | 13% | 12% | 0.26 |
| Applied Matls | 17.5% | 14% | 0.23 |
Percentages are approximate. Figures taken from SEC filings
SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
