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Microsoft Accused of Squandering Billions On R&D
Julie188 writes "Even as Microsoft celebrates its 10,000th patent, angry shareholders are starting to speak out against what they say is the squandering of billions of dollars on pointless R&D projects. The 10,000th patent covers a technology that allows a device to associate data with objects placed on its surface, and is likely eventually to become part of the Surface table PC. But shareholders are fed up with the $8 billion annually spent. Said one, 'I believe Bill Gates is a charlatan because what he has said, implied, promised to shareholders and stakeholders and all of these visionary things that he mumbles and jumbles about and doesn't make reality of. MS is spending billions of dollars on R&D. Where is the return on investment?' In contrast, Apple had almost the same revenue gains as Microsoft while spending one-tenth as much."
Why complain about what Bill Gates is saying? The last I saw he wasn't in charge any more. If you must complain about what the head of Microsoft is doing, complain about the chairs flying out of Steve Balmer's office.
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When a company cannot capitalize on its R&D spending, shareholders insist on cutbacks, and the company eventually falls behind and becomes irrelevant.
Since Mr. Gates owns so much of MS, I personally doubt this will happen, but if MS concedes and then begins to cut back on R&D, I'll start to believe those that say that the days of MS are numbered.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
It seems that MS has managed to work itself into a stalemate. On one hand it must keep evolving and changing to attempt to be better than Linux and Apple, but on the other hand it has to keep regulations into check to not become even more monopolistic. R&D is about the only output that MS can put its profits into to keep regulators at bay and still grow its business.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Maybe if their R&D Budget went more into real products, and less into bullshit patents and lawyers, they'd get a better ROI.
Even as Microsoft celebrates its 10,000th patent, angry shareholders are starting to speak out against what they say is the squandering of billions of dollars on pointless R&D projects.
Investors know that sometimes things won't pay out. These are the whiny little 10%-return-no-risk assholes who sue when a CEO doesn't start layoffs ASAP to pump up the stock price.
Here's news for you: sometimes weird investments pay off in radically unforeseeable ways. If you're the kind of jackass who dismissed the idea because we already had vacuum tubes, then you're the same kind who thinks modern R&D is a waste of money.
As much as I dislove Microsoft, I'm glad they're doing this stuff. Apparently they understand the importance even if a few short term profit-takers are too stupid to see it.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
This has less to do with Bill Gates mumbling and jumbling and more to do with the stock market tumbling and tumbling.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Windows Vista?
Wisest is he who knows he does not know.
The simple answer is you can't "manage" or plan innovation. A reasonable plan would be to hire a bunch of hackers, preferably ones seen at work at 2 AM, give them each a private office and a $30,000 yearly budget for gadgetry, and a mandate to do something fun and maybe useful. And that's it.
Of course no manager would allow this, so that might explain the paucity of results.
Bell Labs, Xerox PARC, IBM's various research labs, 3M's research and others have all generated wonderful new things from their basic research. Google is just one company that encourages employees to spend a portion of their work time on personal research projects.
And now as we bemoan the "next-quarter" mentality of corporate officers and the decimation of basic research, along comes this bunch.
If corporations can't do basic research for fear of being sued, we might as well just pack up our remaining industry and ship it overseas right now.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Most of Apple's "R&D" is spent on "D"; there is very little actual research coming out of Apple, by any objective measure. Apple just takes other people's badly packaged good ideas and sticks them into shiny white plastic packages, writing patents along the way.
Unlike other big companies, Apple doesn't even give research grants to academia in any significant quantity (they just charge an arm and a leg for their machines).
If all high tech companies were as stingy as Apple, academia and computer science research would be in big trouble.
Sounds like Microsoft now has its fair share of shareholders with such a short-sighted vision that they are only interested in short-term profit at the expense of long-term growth. As hundreds of companies have discovered... The "democratic" approach of shareholding has its drawbacks. O_o
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I, for one, think all that money spent on Microsoft Bob and Microsoft Songsmith was money well spent!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Unlike Apple, MS has to invest heavy in R&D because unlike Apple, they don't opperate like a consumer hardware company. Secondly, MS is growing stagnant in the operating system market, because the OS has become ubiquitious, and they have regulators scruitinizing everything they plan to do with their OS offering. Thirdly, if MS does millions in R&D, and their competitors or FOSS can take that and produce a free or cheaper interoperable product, their consumer/desktop software lines are threatened.
MS is moving to the edge of bubble, they need to either realize that they are becoming the next IBM and begin to move away from the desktop market into server/solutions development; or begin to become more of a consumer electronics company, which would require creating "good" consumer electronics and be competitive in that market, not use it as a loss-leader to harm their competitors or further intrench their Windows position. Desktop computing in the past 3-4 years has offered very little that is groundbreaking for the average user, and the best-of-the best in '01 is still good enough for most people. PC manufacturers aren't seeing major growth, only sales in "back-to-school" periods where students become first time buyers rather than using mom & dads aging box, or replacement when existing boxes fail; which more and more consumers and companies are working to reduce.
In a strapped market, where people are much more willing part with hard earned dollars for 6 more inches on their screen with HD more than chips 400MHz faster (but feel slower on bloated software), MS needs to find a new market that they can win, and win big in; or they are going to see their share decreasing.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
In agreement is shareholder Mike McDonald. McDonald owns 118,000 shares of Microsoft, bought in 2000 at an average price of $36 share (adjusted for splits and dividend payouts).
118K shares huh? Well, that's certainly a lot of money to me and probably most people reading this, but considering the fact that 8.89BILLION shares are outstanding, Bill Gates owns ~766MM, institutions (which are generally very passive owners) own over a billion shares, and mutual funds (mostly owned indirectly by you and me through 401k plans - also very passive owners) own a substantial amount, I'm thinking MS is not too worried about this.
Personally, I'm a little more concerned with the bank stocks I own (a small pittance of, also through my 401k) and what they're doing. If there's a fight to be picked on Wall Street these days, it's with the management at banks which is currently raping us for our money, not with a company that is unsuccessfully trying to conduct R&D.
If you dislike where MS is going so much, don't be an idiot and complain that they should stop their R&D... just sell your stock! If I've got a problem with the banks insisting on hundreds of billions of dollars AND billions in bonuses, THAT'S a problem worth complaining about.
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That is NOT the question.
The question should be, are MS shareholders getting value for money from the R&D ?
And frankly, I'm not seeing anything recent that looks like it was worth $8bn.
For sure, some research will probably show long-term benefits, but at least some of it must start to show benefits around now; after all, this is not the first year that there has been heavy R&D investment. Where are the cool things to show for it that improve our lives.
Or is "Touch" it, really, billions for "Touch" ? My dog could have developed something better than that for only $4bn a year.
I suggest M$ give all their money to the guy who does the tricks with the Wii controllers.
Or to my dog.
Nullius in verba
For software companies, not just Microsoft, there is almost no cost associated with manufacturing and distribution. The cost of developing the software, however, is real and is accrued before the software ships, hence it is accounted for as "Research and Development." Microsoft's "billions of dollars" of R&D is really Microsoft's labor costs -- the programmers who write the code. I suspect that actual real research is a small portion of that sum.
Back in the late 1990s and earlier Microsoft's business plan was much simpler: "Windows Everywhere" was the motto and battle cry. Once the stock peaked and Windows had long hit saturation in the big computer markets things became more complicated. That was right around Gates handed things over to Ballmer.
However, that doesn't excuse Ballmer for the massive failure of leadership and execution during his tenure.
The 8+ billion dollar Xbox fiasco.
The mind bogglingly poor execution of the search team
The total flop of the Zune
The equally mind bogglingly poor result of MSN/online
People have described Ballmer having created a "Culture of Failure" at Microsoft. A culture that embraces throwing billions of dollars at a bad project of idea over a million dollars at an equally bad project or idea.
Ballmer seems to have a business plan that is simply nothing more than to "Kick Ass".
The hit to the Windows profits have been a wake up call to everyone at Microsoft. The days of feeling like Windows and Office would be an never ending flow of cash to throw at anything and everything are over.
The cuts we've seen so far are nothing. Ballmer is still of the mindset of trying to cut as little as possible to appease the Street. Until he is gone Microsoft will continue to flounder and slide sideways to lower.
Loser products like the Zune hardware are on the way out. The Xbox fiasco is most likely next to get the axe. Search and the online services messes need to be given a short timeline to get their act together or be axed.
Microsoft has really got their shit together with the security and stability of Windows. A Microsoft with a visionary and competent leader could be a giant nightmare for Linux and Apple.
From TFA:
Dude! You loaded up on the stock of a company whose products you don't even like, and watched it lose half its value without liquidating your position, and you're blaming Bill Gates for your problems???
Your god may be dead, but mine aren't!
Wow. I thought that MS's problems were because of bad management. When I read this, I realize that it goes all the way back to their shareholders.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Depending on how Microsoft classifies it's workforce, this may be a simple labeling issue, Many companies call future development work R&D for tax purposes. I believe you can deduct or amortize part of your R&D budget. So, Windows 8 may very well be "R&D".
At $10,000 apiece, all MSFT has to do is sell 800,000 Surface tables and they've got their money back. I mean who doesn't want a big-ass kiosk in their home.
If their R&D has let them figure out a way to make $10,000 items which have a zero cost of goods, and don't have any marketing or support costs, they've got it made.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Microsoft has been shutting down their Xbox game studios over the past three years. They are now down to only three: Rare, Lionhead, and Turn 10. Along with their talk of not releasing new Xbox hardware any time soon it sounds like they are easing out of the console market.
They surely see that they went with the absolutely cheapest console hardware and still lost billions. With no consumer electronics design and manufacturing capabilities of their own there is no reason that they would do any better with yet another try at console hardware. More reliable and better built hardware is going to cost more money. And no one at Microsoft appears to be in any mood to continue spending billions on products that are doing nothing for Microsoft as a whole.
A bunch of the .NET languages, runtimes, and compiler features originated in or were developed closely with Microsoft Research, and some parts (like F#) were almost wholly developed there.
Although it's not very much liked by Slashdotters, Songsmith has also been relatively successful. Kodu is also getting a reasonable amount of press, and helping to solidify XNA's lead in the education-via-games space.
More generally, they develop prototypes of a lot of ideas that get reimplemented by the "product" side of the company. For example, MSR has been experimenting with adding machine-learning and data-mining features to MS desktop products for years, something that the product group is now starting to do with Excel. Those sorts of things are harder to quantify of course--- did the MSR experiments in that area help the product team at all? Would they have done the same anyway? Hard to say, but in general I think the advantages of having an R&D division in your company are undercounted in these "soft gains" ways, which is one reason that once companies downside their R&D divisions, the product groups stop producing as many new things as well.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Mod twitter funny.
You usually don't get to see this kind of schizophrenia outside of the movies. It's actually amusing to watch his paranoid delusions build on themselves, as the AC below (which is clearly twitter, again) shows.
Microsoft Research consistently accounts for approximately 15% of the papers presented at SIGGRAPH every year.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Contributing to open source projects is not research; it is development focused on open-source products instead of closed-source products. Research would be developing new ways to improve operating systems, compilers, and web servers, for example, based on certain criteria (performance, security, design, etc.). For example, Plan 9 is a research project. There is plenty of research in academia and industry that are geared toward solving real-world problems. For example, many of the advances in computer hardware, such as deep pipelines and multicore processors, started out as research problems. But contributing to an open source project is different from research. I fail to see how contributing to GCC or WebKit per se solves any problems in computer science, which is the definition of research, unless those contributions are a result of research.
I used to say this few month ago, until I started coming across Vista computers infected with all kinds of exotic trojans and malware. The security model on Windows has gone from complete anarchy to "here's a computer - train it yourself." The burden has been shifted towards the user. That's not progress in my view.
Also, I'm not convinced about Xbox being a fiasco. Out of all the billions they have wasted, this one looks like a winner in the long run. They're one generation away from dominating the high-end console space in an event of one more Sony fuckup with PS3. You could never count Sony out when it comes to massive fuckups.
This is the entire problem with incorporation. If Microsoft were to dissolve their Windows branch and focus entirely on cool things (Zune, Xbox, Silverlight) then the world would be a much better place all around, but instead, they're forced, by legal obligation, to work on making stock prices as high as possible.
Shareholders need to go fuck themselves.
~ C.
As a [remaining -- for now] Microsoft employee, I can tell you that there is lots of stuff going on here that gets cancelled. Things do not always pan out.
There are probably projects and people that could be cut. MS could probably be more efficient.
Generally, I've seen good technology and near-finished products get killed for political reasons. That work tends not to be completely lost, however. Near-produts tend to have their interesting technologies teased apart, refactored, and re-incorporated into future MS offerings.
However, much as I malign them, I trust the various managers within MSFT to make R&D and strategy decisions over some dipshit that owns 200 shares of MSFT and is irate that he's not seeing '95->'99 era stock price appreciation.
The MSFT stock has been garbage for a long time -- and I am sure I own more of it than the average complainer. Microsoft has always spent money all over the place because real progress takes investment. The company continues to be highly profitable and doesn't appear to need micromanagement from people looking to get rich via stock speculation.
I haven't carefully analyzed the ramifications, but I am at least emotionally drawn towards the idea of MSFT rebuying _all_ of its public stock and telling the market to FOAD.
Last I checked our market cap was down in the $200B range, so I don't think that's a plausible option, given our cash position.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
- Parallel Extensions to .NET
- Surface
- Photosynth
- WorldWide Telescope
I don't know if Parallel Extensions is worth $8 billion, but it's a huge deal and the cornerstone of the ManyCore/Multicore work MS is doing. It's pretty freaking cool. (And the Mono folks have already implemented it...)
"The urge to fly from modern systems, instead of moving through them to even greater, fairer things is, I think, an indi
ZeroConf is absolutely research. It involved Stuart Cheshire coming up with a bunch of totally new ways to leverage DNS to provide dynamically self-configuring networks.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
My understanding is that until recently one of the big purposes of MS Research was just prestige, not really product production. MSR has consistently produced a very large amount of academic research in some key areas, e.g. almost always accounting for more than 10% of the papers at SIGGRAPH, year in and year out. Microsoft management was of the opinion that having something like that was useful to their business in indirect ways, even if those SIGGRAPH papers didn't directly lead to deals with CG film companies or anything. Is that true? I have no idea; it's kind of hard to measure intangibles like whether having a prestigious research group attached to your company increased your reputation to the point where it tipped the balance on an important sale or contract.
I think they were also going for the Bell Labs model, where the research group pays for itself if it's left to its own devices and very occasionally invents/patents something big. I have no idea what MSR's patent portfolio is like from a business perspective. Have they licensed any significant percentage of it? More intangibly, what proportion of Microsoft's defensive patent portfolio originated from MSR?
And finally, one of the unofficial purposes of MSR for years was just to hire up everyone so nobody else could. Microsoft had a dominant lead in a number of areas, and one way to protect that is just to deny all your competitors access to talent. Kind of the model Google is currently using (they hardly need 20,000 employees otherwise).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
They are dominating the high-end console space, with Wii dominating the low-end. The PS3 is a clear 3rd, and will probably not catch up. It might all change with the next generation, though.
It may not be popular or known to common users, but Microsoft Research is actually fairly well known for its work and yields plenty contributions to scientific publications - so it isn't like they aren't doing anything. Here are some random pages from the site.
If anything, it's surprising that more of it doesn't bubble up into consumer products. Maybe it's simply mismanaged or mistrusted by the management?
-- Sig down
You say that the Xbox fiasco is on its way out. If this its true, MS is completely going to gut their investment in gaming. They've already trashed Ensemble (Age of Empires) and ACES (Flight Sim), two storied and successful PC franchises. Some speculation is that the products released were too niche, but there's no reason to gut popular products that continued to improve over time when they're profitable. Combine these cuts with the abomination that is Games for Windows and DirectX 11's focus on video over gaming, and I have to wonder if MS is able to take any more hits against gaming, which for many power users is the main reason to keep a Windows install around.
"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine."
I'm tired of splitting hairs to find reasons to make Microsoft look bad. This type of submission is equivalent to tabloid shit and doesn't warrant hundreds of comments, even the same comments as last time someone put Microsoft under a microscope.
Good for Apple, bad for Microsoft, let the shareholders figure it out; now throw this submission under idle and let's continue onto better spent time...
Ballmer CHAIRS the Board and he might CHAIR the BORED if he hasn't got their unprovided attention...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Here's a site which is non-biased, just showing sales information: http://www.vgchartz.com/
It looks like the 360 is pretty far ahead in the U.S. market and about 2 million ahead in the other markets, and then around 2 million behind in Japan. Of course, the Wii is dominating everything.
Since time immemorial, research has been achieved by strong patronage from the rich. Basic research thrives in extreme affluence as there is no great motivation to make the dollar work. MSFT and GOOG have been so wildly successful and that is great for the current generation as they continue to employ smart people with little pressure to come out with products that sell but are only judged by the quality of their research.
It wont last long with either of these Companies, especially with MSFT losing ground to Google the pressure for survival is growing. I think the next set of Companies/entities doing basic research will come from China. They have a huge war chest of resources and are beginning to establish their monopoly.
You cant compare the R&D budgets of apple and Microsoft as their product lines are far different.
Microsoft has 1000's of applications across several markets, apple has 100's ( if that ) across a handful of markets.
Its almost like comparing Tesla Motors to GM...
---- Booth was a patriot ----
One tiny Microsoft investor, who admittedly doesn't even like their products, objects to their current strategy. Much, much larger Microsoft investors, such as Bill Gates, disagree with him. Since they own the company and this guy does not, their say wins out.
If he does represent a majority of Microsoft shareholders, he can of course propose a shareholder resolution and try to outvote Bill Gates at the shareholder meeting, or even replace the current MSFT directors with a new slate.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
They are dominating the high-end console space, with Wii dominating the low-end. The PS3 is a clear 3rd, and will probably not catch up. It might all change with the next generation, though.
That's a dubious distinction, if they're not making any money by doing so. The number of warranty repairs they've had to make is astounding.
And who cares about high or low-end? A 360 is barely more expensive than a Wii, and should theoretically be capable of everything that the Wii is, if it's a "high-end" machine (it's not, but that doesn't change the fact that neither Sony nor Microsoft have even attempted to capture part of Nintendo's marketshare). From the investor's point of view, the Wii has completely dominated anything that Microsoft or Sony have been able to conjure up.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Right, as if companies like Xerox and IBM have done any better at turning research into products? Remember that System R* was an IBM research product that they spent millions on, then just sat on the shelf. It wasn't until Larry Ellison took IBM's Relational Database specifications and proved you could make money with it by founding this little database company named Oracle that IBM decided they should get off their ass and come out with DB2. Why should we expect Microsoft to do any better?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
wow, it's taken "shareholders" this long to figure out it's all been a sham? Windows is what brings in over 80% of the revenues and billions a blown year after year on money losing ventures and that thing they call R&D. R&D is a really nice black hole to hide and move money around too. I remember a few years back when MSFT cut R&D by 50%( down to ~$3.2billioin from ~$6.4billion ) and magically a bunch of the other divisions showed profits for the first time. A couple of quarters later they were back to losing $100s of millions each.
The whole company is running on the 20 year old monopoly and they don't have any clue how to make a profit outside of Windows. And it sounds like shareholders are finally getting sick of this now that it's been something like 8 years with little value/growth and Vista, well I'm guessing that's pissing them off too. It also doesn't help when little Apple can launch products, v1.0 products I might add, and they are fantastically profitable.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Said one, 'I believe Bill Gates is a charlatan because...'
An investor said that?
And they believe Bill Gates was a seventh level magic user who magicked them in to investing with him through flim flammery?
Sorry the economy sucks but take some personal responsibility and stop blaming everyone.
If you're going to sit around annoying the shit out of everyone at the watercooler, telling them how you're a really smart investor when the economy's strong... you don't get to whine when it's weak. You took credit for your "decisions" then, they're still your decisions now.
If you were really so incompetent an investor to fall for "a charlatan" you probably shouldn't be investing anyway. And, if you do lose, hopefully the pain will be just sufficient enough to teach you that.
They've spent a LOT more than $5 billion on the Xboxen over the past decade or so. More like $25 - $30 billion, last I read. That's a truly staggering sum for a product line that's yet to earn them even a cool billion in profit over the same period.
It's even more embarrassing for Microsoft when you realize the Wii has forced them to cut the price of the Xbox 360 just to remain competitive saleswise - and they're still sliding into 2nd place in this generation for overall sales, in spite of having a year's headstart.
Even worse, Nintendo has been turning a profit on the Wii since very early on in its lifecycle. Microsoft just recently started turning any consistent profits at all on its videogame business, and last I read they're still losing money on every 360 they sell (they have to make it back on the games). In contrast, Nintendo is turning a profit both on their consoles and on the games.
In a lot of ways, I'd say Microsoft is an even bigger loser in this generation of the console wars than Sony. The PS3 is likely to have a longer lifespan in the market than the 360, giving Sony more of a chance to make money off the consoles (and games) in the long run. And by pushing Blu-Ray to some level of success at least Sony stands to make some money off that standard thanks to their enormous PS3 investment. In contrast, Microsoft has nothing to show for the whole Xbox investment besides - finally - an anemic quarterly profit for their gaming division.
Apple's making far more money off of the iPhone than Microsoft's making off of the Xbox, and it cost Apple far less money and took Apple far less time.
I think folks criticizing Microsoft for their R&D investments are on the right track. Microsoft has blown a ton of money on R&D and on trying to get into other markets besides desktop PCs, and much of it has been completely wasted. Several of their competitors have done a far better job, spending a lot less money.
Research is great, but you have to be able to translate that research into products people want to buy (that's the "development" side of R&D). Microsoft risks becoming the next Xerox - a one-trick pony who dominated one market, but who could never translate their extensive R&D efforts into successful products in different markets. Remember, it was Xerox who pretty much invented the modern graphical user interface PCs sport today, along with things like Ethernet and laser printers. Where are they now?
You honestly think that 360s are outselling Wiis here? As somebody who actually works in a store selling video game consoles, I assure you that is not the case. If we could keep Wiis in stock for more than a day or two at a time I'm sure they'd sell even better, but as it is I've probably seen as many Wiis sold as PS3s and 360s combined.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
THis is like comparing Oranges to Apple. Microsoft does a lot of their own R&D, while Apple just pays people to do it for them. Microsoft makes more than 10x what Apple does, and did 10x the amount of R&D. So what if this year Apple made a big improvement in their profits--it's not going to happen if they keep putting out the same old system from 10 years ago. People bought iPods and iPhones because they are new and they did enough R&D to make sure it works pretty well. Nobody likes Vista because it's basically just XP with some window dressing. If they cut the R&D what are they going to do, release another XP year after year?
I'm not normally one to speak up for Bill Gates or Microsoft, both of which I have a long habit of despising (although I think mr Gates appears more sympathetic since he left MS). However, I have always been in favour of doing basic research - without people being willing to "squander" time and resources on finding out about things that give no immediate return on investments, we wouldn't have most of the things we take for granted now: computers, radio, TV, cars, etc etc etc. In fact, most of what we consider human were once a waste of time, people fiddling idly with things they didn't need. Who knows, maybe once somebody was playing with the smouldering remains of a lightning stricken tree and his mates went "Why are you wasting your time on that nonsense, do you think you can eat it? Hur, hur, hur".
The question of the shareholders should not be wether MS should invest into R&D or not - but why they are so bad in materializing on it.
...
Of course I do not have an oversight on all the projects. But I think that very many of the research that is going on at Microsoft Reseaerch is very interesting and could be fun or even useful in the future.
Examples: featured here on slashdot there was Songsmith ( http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/songsmith/index.html ). And there are many others, just look at http://research.microsoft.com./
MS has a long tradition in missing out oportunities. Because they are big and they follow a monopolist's strategy: that is to wait and see, look out for the profitable markets - then step in.
I keep telling the example of the impressive and really useful technology of RemoteScripting (although I do not know if it came from MS Research!). It was years out before the market understood the power of it.
At that time I had several clients who refused to use it, becaue it was proprietory MS (non-standard) and almost completely unknown in the industry.
Today it has become the underlying technology for something everybody knows: Ajax.
If MS had supported and promoted RemoteScripting
you get the point.
how IT is changing the world - http://max.zamorsky.name
You know, I was thinking much along the same lines. Go to court and tell them, "yeah, some of the R&D won't pay off, but the ones whic do allowed us to make X, Y and Z, and earn royalties from licensing W to other." Then I remembered it's Microsoft. I can just see it,
"Your honour, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, may I draw your attention to exhibit 1: without an R&D budget we couldn't have made the Zune. Erm, ok, so its market segment imploded to nearly zero during the Christmas period, but we couldn't have made it without R&D."
"Then we have our continued investment in expanding and improving our search engine business, so maybe one day it won't get its arse handed to it by Google that hard. In fact, I can sense a Google-killer coming. Step 3 in that business plan is that either an advanced extraterestrial civilization hands over their search engine, or the whole Google has a heart attack when we're around so we can claim the kill. Then one day maybe we can sell advertisments too and actually make an income out of it. But let's not get that far ahead of us."
"We have invested heavily in developing a state of the art DRM that will allow us to own the digital media market... at a time where DRM is producing more and more of an allergic reaction in the market, and the major media labels are experimenting with dropping DRM entirely. We think that the incompatible DRM and the 'plays for sure' thing not actually playing even on previous versions of itself are what helped kill the Zune, come to think of it."
"We have invested millions in the newest version of Internet Explorer, so, umm, it could continue to slowly lose market share to Mozilla and Opera. But without R&D, we wouldn't have had the new stuff in it. Ok, so it's a toolbar and browser tabs. You don't think that Mozilla's toolbar and tabs copied themselves into our product, do you? That's what we need R&D for."
"Then it's our R&D which produced such technologies as .Net and C#. Ok, so it just made Vista more bloated and everyone uses Mono for it anyway, but we think we at least managed to piss off Sun a little. And don't pay attention to claims that it just ripped off Java. If you'll look at the next exhibit, a simple C# program and its Java equivalent... you'll notice two extra curly braces per class and a typo in a keyword... err... I mean a new highly-innovative keyword. Clearly such visionary changes wouldn't happen without billions invested in R&D."
"We have also improved our Games For Windows brand name, and strengthened recognition of that brand, via innovative improvements that our talented R&D teams have produced. For example in Fallout 3 it made the game randomly crash when starting or exitting, and needed an extra patch just to fix that. It also created a demand for hacks to remove it from the victim... err... customer's computers. I think I'm not exaggerating when I say that now everyone knows about Games For Windows. Our data mining the web with our search engine has shown that nowadays the phrase Games For Windows shows up ten times more often than a year ago, though most often after the word 'fuck' or before the word 'sucks', or within the same paragraph as the phrase, 'how do I uninstall it?' You can't buy brand recognition like that with marketing alone."
"Then thanks to years of R&D, we have produced Vista. Umm... Your honour, can you make them stop laughing so I can continue? Thanks... We call Vista a great success, because almost everyone who got it on their computer, then bought Windows XP at a premium just to get a usable computer. So we sold them two operating systems, whereas without Vista they'd have only bought one. Everyone else sued us instead. And some did both."
"And speaking of Vista, our R&D has produced anot
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