...that mirrors the eBay framework so its engineers can experiment with new tools. That way, developers can test products outside of the company's rigid software development process, he said.
The other method is to invite third-party developers into the fold through application programming interfaces. He said that in the past year developers have created an estimated 12,000 applications for eBay, producing as many as 60 percent of the listings on the site. "That's innovation we probably couldn't afford," he said.
"Innovation is about the ecosystem, either removing barriers internally or allowing third parties to help meet the needs of your customers in ways you can't afford to do [or have the time to do]," Mancini said.
Similarly, HP's Friedrich said that one of his company's strategies is to partner with outsiders on projects. "All of the innovative people don't work for your company," he said.
HP, for example, teamed up with DreamWorks years ago to work on technology for lifelike animation and 'cloud' services that were used to produce the movie Shrek. Last week, HP also teamed up with Intel and Yahoo to create six large-scale computing centres that would allow outsiders to test technology.
Cloud services are one of several areas of research for HP, which invests about $3.6bn annually in R&D, Friedrich said. It's also looking at projects in sustainability and managing data. On a broader level, HP is trying to shift the company from a hardware maker to a software company; and it's doing that largely through acquisitions.
Oracle's Marie-Anne Neimat, vice president of development for embedded databases, also pointed to acquisitions as a way to evolve, beyond Oracle's multibillion dollar annual investment in R&D. "It's new blood," she said.
Finally, some technology companies have turned into venture capitalists, too.
Ike Nassi, SAP's executive vice president of research for the Americas and China, said it recently started a venture capital incubator. It solicits ideas from internal employees and external start-ups; and if it's a good idea, SAP will help form a new business unit, fold the start-up into an existing product line, or spin it out as a new company, he said.
"If you have an interesting idea and don't want to go the VC route, we provide seed funding," Nassi said.
That's similar to other technology companies. Intel, Google, Motorola, Amazon and Comcast run venture capital units either formally or informally.
What about the word innovation? "It's completely devalued," Nassi said. "The thing we need to look at is managing risk — whether placing an investment on this versus that, and what's the payoff of that investment."
