The War Room has an interesting post focussing on the surge in both supply and demand of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs): the high-tech remote-controlled (mainly) reconnaisance vehicles that the US in particular uses. At any given time, there will be plenty loitering over Iraq, relaying back detailed, real-time imagery. Some, now, are beginning to carry limited munitions loads, with intriguing possibilities for command and control having arisen in Afghanistan, in particular.
Anyway, there is a hugely interesting comment in the article:
Lockheed had been hesitant to support the UAV market for “fear of undermining its franchise business in fighter jets"
This sort of thinking amazes me when I see it. I thought that IBM had provided the starkest of lessons in this area of technology when they tried to protect mini-computers by under-investing in the desktop.
As Sun Tzu might put it: if you see a potential product threatening your core business area, invest in it.
After all, someone else is certainly going to invest in it, and if it is someone else then, instead of the discomfort of changing business model, you have unemployment. Better to be the one dominating the new area. As Brad points out, Lockheed has given the competitors - especially the relatively small General Atomics who make the Predator - the chance to steal a march on it in this area. However, that needn't be fatal to Lockheed. One option, as mentioned, is throwing the problem at the Skunkworks group who gave us the Blackbird, the F117 and other technological advances. But I suspect that this will not be enough in itself. Lockheed will be looking around for acquisitions that will allow it to buy the technology to catch up and compete in this area: the Microsoft Defence. I wonder if General Atomics themselves might not be a tempting prospect.