3.4 Billion USD: What Apple Spent On R&D In 2012

We had spotted some interesting Apple sales stats in the past - while we understand that sales would lag R&D and other spending, that would seem to indicate some solid products coming from Apple in the next couple of years - we spotted this interesting stat that Apple spent a total of 3.4 Billion USDs on R&D for the whole of 2012 (Source)

How do we digest this number? By comparing it with other biggies, of course. Microsoft spent a whopping $9.8 Billion on R&D last year (Source). Solid difference, that.