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Small high-tech firms are universally considered to be key for stimulating innovation and economic growth. But what if these companies do not grow, due to limited entrepreneurial ambition, premature acquisitions, limited access to market? This is a key problem for policy-makers, but also for the stakeholders of these firms.

eBay offloads Skype, its famous and somewhat failed acquisition by selling it to a group of private equity firms. Though the acquisition failed from the point of view of operations and technology (expected integration never happened) it came out to be a success from a financial point of view. In fact, Skype has turned out to be a profitable and high-growth firm (try following the valuations along Skype's lifecycle).

Nokia is suffering from the emergence of smartphones, with the market share growth of RIM and Apple, and a constant decline in unit margins. Therefore, it is now trying to move into online services with its Ovi portal.

Interesting article on J&J's longtime growth story. Strategy appears to be midway between a diversified conglomerate and a focus on health-related core competencies

"Green" energy is a trickly field for innovation. Energy is a pure commodity, and the market will never choose green over carbon-based energy unless it is cheaper. But green technology will not get to that point of maturity unless government introduces subsidies and/or carbon taxes. True, this is a cost for today, but also a potential driver of economic growth for the near future and for even greater benefits further on. The problem - of course - is in balancing benefits and cost.

India is the only place in the world where you can find huge amounts of engineering graduate recruits. Companies from all over the world are flocking there not only for offshoring menial engineering work, but also for innovation and R&D centers working on important projects "end-to-end". This is not only because labor is available and relatively cheap, but also because this is the way to come up with the products needed by developing countries... which are the only ones where sales growth is likely to occur over the next years

A few months ago, The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA), started running a project on how to increase growth through innovation. Harvard Business School will send their MBA students to Sweden to learn and study the "Swedish miracle". How did they do it and what can we learn from the Swedish model about the importance of innovation for creating increased growth and competitiveness.

The increase of data traffic due to audiovisual content is straining Internet networks, highlighting another strong complementarity between infrastructure and content. The problem is, that most of this content is associated to a few companies (such as Google), who bear the (advertising) fruits of this growth and does not share enough of its costs. What kind of arrangements between players in the value network will create a sustainable model?

Photovoltaic panels are apparently following a nice s-curve, with 100% year-on-year growth. But this has happened  mostly because of public  subsidies, which are about to be reduced, also because cash-strapped governments will not be able to bear the burden of generous feed-in tariffs in the future. The impact is likely to be critical for highly-levered operators, who will find it difficult to service their debt, and for PV makers, who are likely to discover that the industry has a serious problem with oversupply. Add the likelihood of some breakthrough innovation leading to a new generation of cheaper and/or more efficient cells, and you see a critical investment case.

The battle for smartphone OSs is no longer between Symbian and Windows. RIM and have become strong contenders, but now Google-sponsored Android seems to have a very high growth rate. What are its key points? Technical superiority, as is being boasted in ads? Or will it be better integration with the plethora of online services being developed by Google?

An interesting interview with Dr Robert Cooper, senior consultant to Fortune 500 firms and top scholar in the field of innovation management. Today markets in many countries and industries are flat and increasingly commoditized, gains in market shares are expensive and acquisitions often don't work. In addiction, even traditional product development (for most companies, this means line extensions, improvements and product modifications) seems depleted, and only serves to maintain market share. For R. Cooper, the answer is "true innovation - breakthrough products, services and solutions - that create growth engines for the future and some examples, such as Apple's IPod, are often cited."

There are numerous claims that Business Model Innovation is extremely important if you want to stay competitive and increase your revenues. Some would even say that Business Model Innovation has a stronger impact on margin growth than product and service innovations and, at the same time, can disrupt established industries. InnovationManagement asked Business Model Innovation guru Alexander Osterwalder a few questions.

Design thinking is a crucial business asset-one that can, indeed, move a company forward and improve the bottom line. To optimize this impact, Ryan Jacoby and Diego Rodriguez advise thoughtfully structuring the innovation process. They stress working on projects that improve people's lives, and they present a "ways to grow" model that helps managers direct and assess innovation efforts.