R&D in the Third Millenium

The trends apparent when today's information technologies are examined form the basis of projections of future requirements on research and development (R&D). Trends in information technologies such as microelectronics and network intelligence imply R&D challenges for the future. Additional challenges come from the need to pursue new frontiers of technology and go beyond extensions of today's trends. For example, the new software frontier should be the challenge of developing photonic-based software that will effectively utilize and unleash the powerful parallelism of photonic computers. These requirements and challenges demand that an R&D community constantly enhance its effectiveness in generating new technology and accelerate the translation of that technology into new products and services. Factors that will have an impact on this effectiveness include a sense of mission, closeness to customers, and the vital factor of intergroup learning.