(source: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44368813 -- see video)
edit: just to be clear, my questioning isn't meant to be read in a denigratory way. just wondering. Also thank to Kydlaw for pointing out that it actually said "up to five years".
Based off https://natick.research.microsoft.com/
Teddy, Vicky, Paulette, Sally and René?. Better playing safe than sorry, I suppose
While I do think we are seeing the limits of what a publicly-traded company can actually realize, there are of course counterexamples: Google always seems to have multiple irons in the fire, and there are many other examples in the comments on this discussion of corporate research labs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24200764
If not much has happened after 2 years we're good to go. We need to get into the future as fast as possible.
If the concern is that you'd see significant failure after 5 (which is likely) which could undercut your future plans, I could understand cutting the plan short.
It's quite possible that failures at the 5 year mark wont maintain a proportionate ratio with failures at the 2 year mark when compared to control. Maybe drive "A" tends to have an unacceptably high failure rate only after "X" hours of up-time.
This is oft-parroted without any hard evidence though. If it were true even broadly, most companies would be doing absolutely no R&D because all R&D is just cost in the near term.
However, it’s not clear that Microsoft’s next version of windows for example is actual research rather than the software equivalent of making a movie. As such I think what people are talking about fundamental research not the kind of R&D which happens to qualify for a tax break but is mostly just the cost of doing business.
IMO, the line for what still qualifies for research is basically the DARPA self driving car challenge. Before the event it looked like basic research, afterward it looked like an engendering challenge to get there first. In 2004 nobody finished though several got close in 2005, in 2005 five teams finished and the race for commercial success was on.