Not Invented Here

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Not Invented Here (NIH) is a term used to describe a persistent corporate or institutional culture that either intentionally or unintentionally avoids using previously performed research or knowledge because the research and developed knowledge was not originally executed in-house. While perhaps apocryphal, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is said either to be the direct inspiration for the term -- as a play on its acronym -- or simply as one of the worst examples of the culture of 'Not Invented Here'.

In many cases NIH occurs as a result of simple ignorance, as many companies simply never do the research to know whether a solution already exists. Also common, however, are deliberate cases where the organization's staff rejects a known solution because they don't take the time to understand it fully before rejecting it; because they would have to embrace new concepts in infrastructure or terminology; or because they believe they can produce a superior product. As a result, much effort and money is wasted on a solution that in many cases was already developed elsewhere.

Usage in Computing

The computer industry has seen many alleged examples of Not Invented Here syndrome. Some for example, say Apple durring the evolution of the Mac OS through OS 9 did not copy many User Interface innovations found in other operating systems simply because they went against or were not discussed in Apple's original human interface guidelines. These critics say that this was an example of Apple irrationaly rejecting any change not invented by themselves. Silicon Graphics was also heavily critized in the late '90's for sticking with their propietary OS and CPU's when it was becomming clear that commidity x86 hardware had a better price to performance ratio.

Not Invented Here

Usage in Computing

Further reading