Forty years ago they were the best game in town for applied research (defining applied as, on success, having a fast track to commercialization). Later it became similar to the university research: on success, you write some articles, get company wows, but business people have no idea where to stick it and half heartedly throw a few applications at it to see if any stick. Most don't (e.g., deep blue, watson).
At this point large company R&D centers got passed over (by a lot) by VC- funded applied research and saw a (IMO well deserved) drop of funding.
