For many of the world's top 150 technology companies, spending on research and development continues to take a beating. A quick scan of the R&D Corporate Scorecard reveals an abundance of negative numbers, especially in electronics and telecommunications: Ericsson, Lucent, and Nortel Networks have cut budgets more than a third, while Cisco Systems is down by a quarter. The semiconductor sector is also unsteady, with Intel's and Texas Instruments' expenditures flat.

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