The Memo That Spawned Microsoft Research

An anonymous reader writes "In 1991, Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold wrote a 21-page memo to Bill Gates, laying out a plan to create what would become Microsoft Research. Here is the previously unpublished memo and some analysis, along with the original slides that Myhrvold used to pitch the idea to Microsoft's top brass. With the future of Microsoft now in question, it's interesting to see how forward-thinking the company was 20 years ago. It even foresaw how pitfalls in tech transfer, organizational structure, and product R&D could make it fall behind future competitors---who would turn out to be Google, Apple, and Amazon in search, mobile devices, and cloud computing."

Comments

TL;DR Version

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

1) Research is good - every other large technology company does it
2) An R&D department is relatively cheap compared to the money you might waste building the wrong things
3) Let's set up a typical R&D department to do typical R&D things

Zzzzzzzzzzzz....

Re:TL;DR Version

[i kan reed]

See, but Microsoft research actually has some great ideas, but the corporate leadership seems to always insist on chasing the previous latest thing, after the markets have established themselves.

Re:TL;DR Version

[cryptizard]

I don't know if it was their idea from the start, but MSR is hugely different from other companies' R&D. They operate more like a university. Researchers are free to work on anything they want, without consideration to whether it will directly effect a Microsoft product or not. It is one of the few places left outside academia where researchers can do basic research in computer science.

Re:TL;DR Version

[sgt_doom]

Nonsense, wasn't their Surface a colossal success?????? (Joke for the day....)

Re:TL;DR Version

[SJHillman]

But how did they know to come up with that without an R&D department to do the R&D on creating an R&D department?

Re:TL;DR Version

[dittbub]

Theres was a slashdot story yesterday about how an airline company is buying 11k of the surface 2

Re:TL;DR Version

[JaredOfEuropa]

Building the wrong things? The mantra in corporate fantasyland these days is: "buy not build" (that little sentence looks a bit crappy but that is how I've always seen it presented or pronounced). This mostly applies to not re-inventing the wheel for mundane tasks and buying COTS packages instead of building a custom solution (sounds good but I still see it fail in spectacular ways). Anyways, for certain companies like Microsoft, this seems to apply to R&D as well: do not invent, but buy a nimble, innovative small company instead. Of course that nimbleness is crushed when they cram the smaller startup into the corporate mold; they get one good product out of it at best and very often even manage to screw up the rollout or re-launch of that one instance.

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Research is good - every other large technology company does it
2) An R&D department is relatively cheap compared to the money you might waste building the wrong things
3) Let's set up a typical R&D department to do typical R&D things

Zzzzzzzzzzzz....

Most corporations don't invest heavily in R&D. Microsoft does. Most corporations don't invest in R&D that doesn't promise an pretty quick return. MS does. In short, if you're going to comment, know what you're commenting on.

Re:TL;DR Version

[EvanED]

MS Research is not a typical R&D department. It's much more along the lines of something like Bell Labs than anything else. The only other industry research lab that even comes close to MSR currently is IBM's.

Re:TL;DR Version

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I don't know if it was their idea from the start, but MSR is hugely different from other companies' R&D. They operate more like a university. Researchers are free to work on anything they want, without consideration to whether it will directly effect a Microsoft product or not. It is one of the few places left outside academia where researchers can do basic research in computer science.

I have no way to know if that's right or not, but I'm willing to concede that it's right. I wonder if the problem was that they accomplished nothing of value or if they did actually come up with great ideas, but the non-R&D management above them squelched them. In any event, Microsoft has always struck me as a reactionary rather than visionary, which is exactly why they are pursuing their current strategy of trying to become major players in phones and tablets. Microsoft just waits to see where everybody else in the industry is going and then they follow them and try to pretend that they were there first. In the past that worked pretty well on the PC side of things, but consumers understand phones and tablets enough that they can't get away with that in those areas.

Re:TL;DR Version

[steelfood]

Err, that's true of all old school tech R&D. Look at Xerox PARC, HP Labs, or especially the now-defunct Bell Labs, who gave us modern computing.

Research that needs to have ROI is not research.

Re:TL;DR Version

[h4rr4r]

So?

That is not a lot of units in the grand scale. I bet they got a heck of deal and even then I wonder who sits on both boards.

Re:TL;DR Version

[citizenr]

Yes, they let them research the shit out of stuff, and then SHELVE IT AND NEVER USE IT.
M$ R&D department has only one role - to slurp up all the Stanford/mit/caltech they can get their hands on and deny other big corps (FB/google/amazon) that brainpower.

Re:TL;DR Version

[Quila]

From the article, Myhrvold said the head of the lab shoulc be "similar to the chairman of a computer science department in a university," so you are right.

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is not the research, is the vision of the company echelons. Case in point, the MS Courier was an innovative device I would love to have, but Ballmer killed it because conflicted with his vision of unified Windows and the Office line. Instead, he got tickets to the season 2 of tablet craze and started throwing tantrums and chairs when realized he was outselled by Apple, then Android then eveyone else and their cat.

Re:TL;DR Version

[cryptizard]

Of course, that's why I said one of the only places left.

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a good product.

The vagaries of the market have little to do with the quality of the components.

Re:TL;DR Version

[NatasRevol]

It worked spectacularly for them once upon a time, so they now assume it will work every time.

Re:TL;DR Version

[NatasRevol]

And here's a story saying the pilots, who tested out iPads, fought against IT, who wanted to use the Surface2.

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/30/delta-pilots-fought-against-deal-to-replace-ipad-flight-bags-with-microsoft-surface

Basically, a CIO saying 'I don't give a fuck what the users want, we'll tell them what the get'.

Re:TL;DR Version

[NatasRevol]

They outsourced that part.

Re:TL;DR Version

[i kan reed]

Your ambiguous phrasing leads to the most natural parsing of your statement being the opposite of what you intend.

Re:TL;DR Version

[NatasRevol]

Your parsing is different than mine then.

pilots who tested ipads

fought

IT who wanted Surface2

Re:TL;DR Version

[pepty]

Same thing in the Pharma branch of fantasyland: ILOS (in-license, out-source). Makes perfect sense: why would a VP wait 3-10 years to find out if a research program is going to pan out when they can buy someone else's drug candidates, declare immediate victory, and get promoted before the drugs flop in clinical trials?

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

And if it wasn't about Microsoft it would be interesting and relevant, right?

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

Theres was a slashdot story yesterday about how an airline company is buying 11k of the surface 2

Sounds familiar... BlackBerry anyone?

Re:TL;DR Version

[jbolden]

Microsoft has mainly focused on implementing in a way that reduces labor (i.e. simplicity of configuration and administration) and software costs as a business strategy. On the OS side and the compiler side of the house they are tremendously innovative, I don't think you can question their accomplishments there. I think there is a tendency not to consider things like the design of the Microsoft networking stack or the internal structures for C# compilers when talking about Microsoft.

Re:TL;DR Version

[i kan reed]

Yes, but the natural inclination with dependent clauses is to refer back to the original subject of the sentence, which leads to a situation where(omitting the actual predicate) you get an interpretation of "pilots who wanted surface2." In this case the best solution is to break up the 2 main ideas you have into two independent clauses; it possibly being one of the few appropriate applications of the semicolon.

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

The responding memo was about research into writing memos less than 20 pages.

Re:TL;DR Version

[TopherC]

It sounded to me like article is responding to a change in management (Peter Lee taking the reigns). It's not very direct about what it's advocating however, probably there's some inside context for this. The following points stood out to me:

  - Research is not advanced development on potential new products
  - Research areas should be carefully chosen with an eye toward giving the company an edge

That first point is probably what Bob Buderi is most concerned about. Management may be pushing Microsoft Research to be more product-focused. His response might be to instead focus on more careful selection of research areas, and more willingness to try productizing the research output.

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

One anonymous pilot made a comment to an Apple fanboy site that they wanted an iPad, fanboy site extrapolated into a story.

Journalism at its finest.

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft has mainly focused on implementing in a way that reduces labor" lol. More like MS creates unnecessary complexity to maintain an IT infrastructure who make buying decisions based on keeping their jobs intact while screwing over users and keeping upper management in a state of confusion. ie One hand washes the other.

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if it was their idea from the start, but MSR is hugely different from other companies' R&D. They operate more like a university. Researchers are free to work on anything they want, without consideration to whether it will directly effect a Microsoft product or not. It is one of the few places left outside academia where researchers can do basic research in computer science.

And it really shows in their current product offerings.

Re:TL;DR Version

[jrumney]

MSR is hugely different from other companies' R&D. They operate more like a university. Researchers are free to work on anything they want, without consideration to whether it will directly effect a Microsoft product or not. It is one of the few places left outside academia where researchers can do basic research in computer science.

I think that describes the environment at Xerox PARC, Bell Labs, HP Labs, IBM Research and other predecessors perfectly. Microsoft Research was not unusual when it was founded. It is an increasingly rare environment today though, as the former giants of technology have shrunk and been taken over by beancounters more concerned with the direct short term value that each employee brings into the company than the long term value of cultivating ideas that might turn into the next big thing.

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

"Give him a coin, since he must profit by what he learns." - Euclid.

(A remark made to his servant when a student asked what he would get out of studying geometry...)

Re:TL;DR Version

[davester666]

Are you sure they are "buying" them?

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

"2) An R&D department is relatively cheap compared to the money you might waste building the wrong things"

Which R&D do you work in? Cause why is it that every R&D dept spends millions on projects, results in a great demo then leave a engineering mess to production behind....

R&D does high risk, high gamble projects. That means $$$$. No such thing as cheap R&D unless all your team is doing is publishing papers or hoarding IP patents.

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

And academic research isn't like what it used to be. It's so intertwined with corporate funding, or potential startup opportunities. Every college campus wants to create the next Google, not a cure for cancer (unless they can corner a business market).

Re:TL;DR Version

[Anonymous Coward]

I usually don't mod grammar Nazis, but I learnt something, so what the hell.

Re:TL;DR Version

[0ld_d0g]

Yes, they let them research the shit out of stuff, and then SHELVE IT AND NEVER USE IT.

Who cares if they shelve it as long as they publish it. Just last week I benefited from their research. MSR has a paper on resolution independent curve rendering and using that technique to render text using implicit curves. People are using that to render fonts inside the pixel shader w/o any font/graphics API !

M$ R&D department has only one role - to slurp up all the Stanford/mit/caltech they can get their hands on and deny other big corps (FB/google/amazon) that brainpower.

Some evil trickery forces people to apply for jobs? MSR has a Vulcan mind meld?

Besides.. I'm happy if they hire the smartest people and keep publishing papers. Everyone gets to benefit.

Re:TL;DR Version

[jalopezp]

So the GP is not too far off in saying that Microsoft's R&D department operates much like other R&D departments, as long as you consider only its immediate environment: Microsoft Research is very similar to other research departments operated by technology giants. The only difference I can find (aside from the 20 years of difference) is that its wiki page does not have a list of technologies developed there.

Re:TL;DR Version

[bmajik]

Disclaimer: I've been a Microsoft employee since 2000.

I can tell you that this is demonstrably false. I personally worked on an MSR technology transfer effort.

I won't go too much into the details, but a group at MSR had developed some tools that did some interesting binary instrumentation, and did some very interesting analysis on data you captured from using these instrumented binaries.

This toolchain needed to be integrated into the build process and test process for your codebase, but once you did that work, you could answer some highly interesting questions.

MSR had a team from their side that worked with all of the major product groups at Microsoft to educate us on what the tools did, how to use them, how to integrate them, etc. We found bugs in their code; we made suggestions based on production use of the tools; they fixed them for us during validation and deployment.

I helped integrate the tools into the process for how Visual Studio was built and tested, back in the 2001-2003 era. I know for a fact Windows and Office underwent similar efforts for their products.

This effort didn't immediately translate into a feature in a product; instead, it helped us build and test _all_ our products more effectively.

Much later, VS did ship some tooling to our customers that was superficially similar to what this stuff did, but I wasn't part of that effort, so I don't know if there was technology re-use or not.

The above account is what I had direct experience with.

Additionally, every year MSR holds an event called "tech fest" where researchers setup booths talking about what they've been working on. MS engineers are the target audience. The different research topics are in various different stages of the pipeline -- sometimes you'll see a booth where they show you the "research project" next to a real shipping product that is using it. Other times they'll show you something that Microsoft is probably never going to ship or make money from.

I've seen people run their research and demos from Linux boxes -- and not just because they were doing something Linux specific. The researchers in question appear to have a wide latitude to investigate what they want to investigate, and use the tools they feel most comfortable with (as it should be).

Obviously, not everything done at MSR directly translates into a tangible product. There is certainly a lot of stuff they do that I feel like SHOULD see the light of day but hasn't yet. For instance, of particular interest to me was some research on distributed file systems done by the SNR group. It's public, so you can look up the "Farsite" project.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/farsite/

Look how old those papers are. It's very aggravating to me that we don't just take this stuff for granted now, given how far along the research and demos were 10 years ago.

Re:TL;DR Version

[citizenr]

Who cares if they shelve it as long as they publish it. Just last week I benefited from their research. MSR has a paper on resolution independent curve rendering and using that technique to render text using implicit curves. People are using that to render fonts inside the pixel shader w/o any font/graphics API !

did you license the patent?

Re:TL;DR Version

[0ld_d0g]

I understand your point. BUT.. The list of companies that pays world class researchers and does not file for patents is rather short. In fact, I cant think of a single one off the top of my head.

and then he became a patent troll

[alen]

he started intellectual ventures some years later

Re:and then he became a patent troll

[JaredOfEuropa]

Yup, he's Evil (tm). Even so, take a look at Intellectual Ventures; they take an unusual approach (for patent trolls). What Nathan learned from his time at Microsoft Research is that such a setup is great at generating ideas. And at IV, they do just that: farming ideas, without having to go to the trouble of actually turning these ideas into practical, marketable products. That is left as an exercise for the poor saps who think they've come up with an innovation until IV's lawyer pops round with an infringement ransom note.

Re:and then he became a patent troll

[steelfood]

You don't get it. For these people, it's not about technology. It's not about creating cool toys or making fancy gadgets. It's not about progress. They don't do these things for the love of the field or their profession (which as an executive of Microsoft, basically amounts to being a liar, cheat, and swindler).

It's about money. That's how they keep score between each other.

Re:and then he became a patent troll

[DickBreath]

> he started intellectual ventures some years later

I think you mean Intellectual Vultures.

Nathan Myhrvold, super-achiever ......

[sgt_doom]

.....and then Nathan Myhrvold got rich and went on to found an international patent troll predatory capitalist firm ---- that ole Nathan is soooo productive ---- OR NOT!

Re:Nathan Myhrvold, super-achiever ......

[Anonymous Coward]

...and went on to found an international patent troll predatory capitalist firm

Don't give out any ideas! Microsoft is looking for a new CEO, we could have massive patent troll soon.

Re:Nathan Myhrvold, super-achiever ......

[Anonymous Coward]

now he is working on finding the secret to creating hot ice cream

Re:Nathan Myhrvold, super-achiever ......

[Just Some Guy]

How is a company using the government to coerce other companies to obey some nebulous (and dubious) "intellectual property" rights even remotely capitalist? Fascist, maybe, but not capitalist.

Now we know where...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Microsoft Bob came from.

Re:Now we know where...

[SJHillman]

No, that's from their D&D department, not their R&D department...

Re:Now we know where...

[Anonymous Coward]

And Clippy!

A guy from MS Research spoke in a comp sci class I was in once. He described a hand-writing recognition system he had worked on. At the end, he revealed that the actual production handwriting recognition system in use in MS products had been bought from another company.

To me, the guy seemed locked in to a mode of thought where you had to pay for everything. So he said it wasn't worth it for them to develop handwriting recognition for languages with not many speakers, because they would have to pay so much to get handwriting samples. But couldn't they gather handwriting samples for free? Volunteers, existing handwriting? He seemed to think the only way was to hire a bunch of people to write out samples of handwriting, and that would cost more than it was worth it to MS to offer handwriting recognition in lots of languages.

Which pill?

[jbmartin6]

It even foresaw how pitfalls in tech transfer, organizational structure, and product R&D could make it fall behind future competitors

Microsoft had to learn, just like I did, that there is a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.

I wonder if Myrhvold is the anonymous reader

[Anonymous Coward]

Admittedly I'm an AC myself (never registered), but in this case, Myrhvold is known as an egomaniac wanting to have it both ways - to be seen as cool tech visionary while he pockets obscene amounts of money from his patent trolling ventures (and MS' desktop software monopoly before that).

A good idea

[intermodal]

but it only works if you follow through on that knowledge to get an early foothold. You can identify as many future trends as you want without effectively getting to market early enough for it to matter with a good enough product to stick. The only thing that accomplishes is it gives you the ability to say "I knew that was coming!" And it's not just those who don't get into the market. It's also those who don't keep up with the competition. Palm and Blackberry offered the most widely used products of their type at one point, and now people giggle if you still have one.

Future!?

[dittbub]

Why is Microsoft's future in question?

Re:Future!?

[0racle]

Because this is Slashdot. BTW, it's also the year of the Linux desktop.

Re:Future!?

[steelfood]

In a word: Metro.

That's the biggest sign of Microsoft losing focus. When their little side projects (Zune, Kin, XBox etc.) stayed side projects, it didn't matter whether it failed or not because they didn't affect the money train of Windows and Office. But when their copy-of-a-competitor-and-almost-guaranteed-to-fail side projects start worming their way into their traditional, core, revenue-generating products, then it becomes a big, big problem.

And not only did Metro infect their consumer products, but also their enterprise products. That's worse than Kodak inventing the CCD and killing themselves off. It's a Darwin award waiting to happen.

With that kind of leadership and management, I'd say there's definitely a big question mark over their future. The question is whether they'll continue this trend and ultimately end up destroying themselves by alienating all of their customers, or if they'll be able to reverse it in time before they stop bleeding. With Windows 8.1 and Surface 2, it's really, really not looking good.

Re:Future!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux? What is that?

Well, I think it has no place on the desktop because it's so gosh-darn hard to use.

Re:Future!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your a trolling moron. Quit trolling you troll.

fuckwit troll likes to troll the other fuckwits.

Re:Future!?

[jbolden]

How is Metro a lack of innovation? They are the first major company to move towards ubiquitous computing. You may not like Metro but the ideas behind Metro are brave and complex (i.e. requiring innovation).

Re:Future!?

[sconeu]

Because an interface designed for phones and tablets doesn't work well on a 27" 1080p monitor with a standard keyboard and mouse?

Re:Future!?

[Anonymous Coward]

That sums up /. perfectly.

Re:Future!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because an interface designed for phones and tablets doesn't work well on a 27" 1080p monitor with a standard keyboard and mouse?

So all sci-fi movies are wrong?

Re:Future!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes because of Gorilla arm. Tablets are great because they are flat or on a shallow angle, monitors on the other hand are at a 50 degree angle and will cause medical problems for users.

Re:Future!?

[jbolden]

First off Windows 8 isn't designed for a keyboard, mouse desktop system. For that sort of system you should have a digitizer with the 27" acting as a paired interface. Try that same setup but with the Surface Pro running Windows 8 to get a feel for how that should be working. Or try it with a Wacom.

But regardless, you are complaining you don't like it. That doesn't say anything one way or the other about innovation.

Re:Future!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Minority Deport

Re:Future!?

[Pulzar]

Nobody was asking about innovation in this particular thread. The question at hand is "why is microsoft's future in jeopardy?".

Metro might be innovative, but it's also driven the rest of my family away from laptops and Windows. We're back to the old days of sharing one desktop when heavy usage is needed, and non-Microsoft tablets and phones are used for everything else. That's not the direction they wanted to go in, I'm sure.

Re:Future!?

[ruir]

Easy, because they can't "innovate" as they have done in the past because Apple and Google are too big to buy. Even so, they can trow a large amount of money to nokia for them to go under with them, and to some airplane companies to come forward and say they will use their products, even when infuriating their own employees, which is quite a brilliant strategy, lets say.

Re:Future!?

[plopez]

Just because ideas are brave and complex does not mean they are good ideas. And complex, to me, just seems wrong. KISS.

Re:Future!?

[JasterBobaMereel]

They have attempted to use a single interface on small mobile phones, tablets, Home PC's, General business workstations, Servers, High end workstations, etc .etc .. and failed because it is most likely impossible to make a single interface that will comfortably accommodate all these environments

What they have ended up with is an interface that will only satisfy some of the customers on some of these devices ... and so will shrink their market share not grow it as they hoped

Re:Future!?

[RobertLTux]

Which is EXACTLY why Win8 should have had a "Classic Desktop" mode for those systems that are not touch based.

Ford would not build a car with a JetFighter interface and stop selling "Classic Interface" cars just to be Modern (and serve the new JetFighter division).

Re:Future!?

[painandgreed]

How is Metro a lack of innovation?

It wasn't an example of their lack of innovation. It was an example of why their future is in question. It changed the workflow of their entire OS requiring retraining for essentially every business user out there. Even if trainers don't have to be called in, it's still a hit to business workflow in an amount that I bet somebody someplace has put a dollar amount on. What's worse, is that I really don't see any reason for it except for change for the sake of change. Nothing really works any better than it did before, in fact, I've seen cases of it taking longer due to more clicks and window changes than it used to. That impacts business which is their main stronghold. I'd even bring up the Office Ribbon before Metro as change for the sake of change that nobody wanted, they have had to at least partially back out of, and hasn't really aided usability.

Re:Future!?

[david_thornley]

I don't know, but Microsoft is sure acting like its future is in question.

We have Microsoft's thrashing around in the smartphone and tablet markets, for which they're willing to compromise the Windows cash cow. We have Ballmer trying to make Microsoft into a "devices and services" company, which is an awfully big change for a company that big - particularly when it's still quite profitable. In doing this, Microsoft is souring relations with its resellers. We have the internal reorg. In all this turmoil, we've got Ballmer leaving and somebody else taking over, and somebody who just presided over a company crash is supposed to be a front-runner for replacing him. We also saw the Xbone change features drastically between announcement.

In other words, Microsoft is acting like they can't live with just monopolies in extremely lucrative markets, and arrays of other business products they're making very large amounts of money on. I'd have thought they could remain a successful business for a long time doing that, and jeopardizing those monopolies to move into other markets would be a bad idea.

Re:Future!?

[jbolden]

It may be impossible it may not. If it is impossible then they were wrong. That doesn't mean they were lacking innovation, those are two different axis. I agree they may very well fail, maybe are likely to fail. On the other hand, in all honesty I've used it on a small tablet and I've used it on a keyboard, mouse, large screen (though with a touch tablet to run the Metro GUI) and it works pretty darn well there too. The people it doesn't seem to work well for are people who have Windows 7 hardware.

Re:Future!?

[jbolden]

The ribbon is change for the sense of complexity. Context sensitive menus allow you to add complexity to a product. Embeddable icons make sense. Compare the number of available icons in 2010 to those in 2000. Now imagine if this idea were taken further.

As far as more clicks for Windows 8. I don't think that's true, on the right hardware. Absolutely it is worse with Windows 7 hardware. Microsoft's biggest mistake, the same mistake they made with Vista is allowing Windows 7 machines to upgrade and allowing Windows 7 machines to be sold with Windows 8 OS. It should have been touch mandatory.

Future of Microsoft in question?

[SirGarlon]

Seriously, timothy thinks the future of Microsoft is "now in question?" That would be an accurate thing to say about Research In Motion, but Microsoft isn't in bankruptcy or anything. It's not even operating at a loss.

It's certainly true that Microsoft is past its halcyon days, and lacks either a coherent vision or any real popularity, but that doesn't mean it's on the brink of collapse.

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[grumpy_old_grandpa]

Microsoft is in the past, if you ask me.

Show of hands, everybody: Who hasn't used Windows for work nor leisure in the last ten years? (Tech-support for parents and friends doesn't count).

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[Anonymous Coward]

"future in question" doesn't have to imply on the brink of bankruptcy/collapse... It literally means that it's future is uncertain. It's a meaningless sentence since, technically, the future is always uncertain to some extent.

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Show of hands, everybody: Who hasn't used Windows for work nor leisure in the last ten years? "

My hand is up. More like 15 years.

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[0racle]

(Tech-support for parents and friends doesn't count)

You just killed your own point.

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't shop at Wal-Mart. Thus, Wal-Mart is on the brink of collapse.

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[Lithdren]

Thats sorta like asking people for a show of hands of who wants an apple, then insisting that if you dont like apples, thats not a reason to not raise your hand...

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[fermion]

Twenty years ago the future of MS was in question. The internet was a thing, the WWW was beginning, and we were using Mosaic and many of us would soon move to Netscape. MS, who knew that if the application front end moved form a proprietary application to a generic, open source, open standard web browser, their reign of terror over an unsuspecting population would be over. So they created iE, borked the standard, and engaged in 10 year dark age where the web was not compatible with non MS devices.

Now, after 15 years of in the mobile computer market MS is back to a crisis point because it cannot create a proprietary standard to prevent innovation in the mobile computer market. The best it can do it become a patent troll and extort $10 out of every android handset sold. People wonder why MS is still selling the MS Surface. Because if it did not have a product then it would be a simple and toxic Patent Troll, rather than a slightly better type of patent troll that actually produces a product.

MS is at a point where there is some long term uncertainty. There are many productivity competitors out there, and it is unclear if the next generation is going to as fanatically attached to MS Office. It is certain that the next generation is not going to think the their entire technology stack has to based on MS products. At some point corporate may not see MS as the best value, which is what happened to IBM. And, unlike IBM, MS never actually provided service or a product to the end user, which is why they are scrambling now.

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't need to be dying in order for their future to be questioned.

The company is at a huge crunch point right now, so many people are ditching their stuff, a huge mistake called Surface and Surface 2 (nobody is going to buy it, it fails in the exact same with surface did, nobody wants a huge expensive tablet in the general market and even the media market), loss of focus, and they are completely restructuring the company TO THE THING PEOPLE AREN'T BUYING, oh, AND the CEO is stepping down.

Their future is hugely uncertain right now. But they will still be around to actually have a future. A pretty long one unless the next CEO is somehow worse than Ballmer.
Their glory days are behind them, they actually have to compete with people now.

I still think it is hilarious the company is becoming a hardware and services company when nobody is buying the damn things.
Well, services are fine...ish, but hardware, pfft, what hardware, input devices won't keep them going, nobody buys the phones the tablets or anything else.
Whatever genius thought that was a good idea should be fire... oh wait.

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right that it's not a matter of whether Microsoft survives, but it's hard to argue that their future isn't in question. Their long-time CEO is stepping down and they've yet to announce a successor. Their long-time monopoly product Windows is more vulnerable than ever and they've essentially missed the entire transition away from the desktop to mobile devices. A company like Microsoft with established revenue streams and as much money in the bank as they do doesn't just go away...they could coast on their current momentum for another 15-20 years without making any significant changes. But there's more unanswered questions about Microsoft's future now than there have been since very early on in the company's history.

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape was not an open standard or open source at the time. That only happened AFTER they lost the way in an attempt to stop it from being completely defeated. It was not Open Source vs Microsoft. It was proprietry closed source vs proprietry closed source.

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[funkboy]

I think he meant "the future of M$ leadership now in question" given that the "chair" is on the way out; it's just phrased poorly...

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[Anonymous Coward]

MS is the IBM of this decade, big outdated and largely irrelevant. It's main purpose is to fund the Bill and Melinda Gates Eugenics Foundation.

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[ruir]

Your sir, you rock. That is exactly the problem of MS nowadays, that it can't extend their predatory model to the tablet/phone world, and Apple is too big to buy. and about them being obsolete, they should have had started worrying with that in 2000, not now.

Re:Future of Microsoft in question?

[Xest]

I suspect anyone who puts their hand up is lying. There are still various systems using Windows from self-serve tills to ATMs, to railway ticket machines, to airline flight time boards.

If you've never used any of these things in 15 years then you obviously don't step outside, ever.

Microsoft research

[jbolden]

Microsoft research is doing some amazing things. Also there is a lot of content from the research group on Channel 9. Microsoft's problem is that their userbase is conservative. But as a result of their research they could at will turn on the tap and have tremendous innovations pouring out.

For example Microsoft people (its open source but the contributors are mainly Microsoft) developed C-- which is a portable assembly language which has tail recursion, accurate garbage collection or efficient exception handling. I don't think anyone could follow how much this group does but from innovations in compilers, new systems for concurrency, new algorithms, computation biology.... it is frankly amazing. I only wish Microsoft was more aggressive in pushing their products to adopt more from their research team. Much as the slides talk about the problem Xerox had with Parc, Microsoft has the same problem.

Re:Microsoft research

[Bengie]

Microsoft Research is the good side of Microsoft. They have done a lot of things, like a lot of GPU related features that everyone benefits from are because MS Research worked with GPU manufactures, other PHDs, and Kernel designers to create better scalable GPUs that interface better with all OSes. Most of their research is open, which also includes work on custom built 256core SMP systems that used fiber-optic IO channels, and worked with Intel and others on how to design OS Kernels and hardware that work well together. Because this research is open, it has helped Linux, BSD, and others.

MS Research has a lot of great minds and they help bring together Software and Hardware and work as middle-men to help manufacturers on both sides.

Re:Microsoft research

[jones_supa]

Also there is a lot of content from the research group on Channel 9.

Another vote for Channel 9. One of the best side-things Microsoft is currently churning out.

Re:Microsoft research

[devent]

Can you show some examples of Microsoft research?
In the Channel 9 I only see Windows Phone, Azure, Kinect, some drivers, ...?
Do you mean "C--" as in C minus minus?

Re:Microsoft research

[EvanED]

Can you show some examples of Microsoft research?

Pick any top-tier CS conference. They'll probably have something there.

For example, OSDI '12 (MSR personnel on 5 papers, 2 of which all coauthors worked at MSR), PLDI 2012 (MSR personnel on 6 papers), SIGGRAPH 2013 (harder to sort through, but I count 16 papers with at least one MSR co-author), VLDB 2011 (8 research papers as well as several other things like demos, a keynote, an industrial paper, and a 10-year-retrospective best paper award), STOC 2013 (16 papers if I counted right!), etc.

Seriously, I was not being choosy with those conferences -- the only choosy things I did was pick years for which there was an obvious page that listed the institutions with the authors instead of just the authors (e.g. VLDB 2013) because I'm lazy. If you pick a conference that covers a topic of interest, MSR has had something there. :-)

Re:Microsoft research

[Horshu]

MSR did the implementation for .Net generics. They incubated Linq (via C-Omega). There's the Reactive Framework. Code Contracts comes from them. Tons of AI work. Michael Abrash worked there for a while on natural language.

Re:Microsoft research

[sydneyfong]

A friend of mine who was the sole author of a best paper in STOC 2013 just got offered and accepted a post-doc in Microsoft Research.

Knowing his general research area, (i.e. all abstract theory and absolutely no application all -- in case you don't know which STOC 2013 paper I'm referring to, it's the one where you have no idea what the abstract is talking about), I start to wonder why Microsoft is pumping so much money into Microsoft Research.

Seems funny after reading this from TFA:

Myhrvold identified three key advantages that research can provide a company: a time advantage in introducing new products and technologies; better access to strategic technology; and knowledge and intellectual property for the company. âoeYou shouldnâ(TM)t start research in an area unless there is a strong chance of getting a unique edge in one of these three ways.â (p. 9)

I'm starting to think MSR is more of a "charity" project than anything intended to drive the commercial success of Microsoft. If I phrased the GP's question as:

Can you show some examples of Microsoft research being commercialized successfully?

(emphasis part added by me)

I doubt you can answer that as easily.

Xerox had a similar idea.

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't Xerox have a wonderful research department?
You know, the one where Apple got all it's ideas from...

Re:Xerox had a similar idea.

[alexhs]

Didn't Xerox have a wonderful research department?
You know, the one where Apple got all it's ideas from...

The memo mentions some "Xexox PARC Syndrome" (sic), about some hardware company doing software R&D, I wonder if this is related ?

The future of Microsoft now in question ... Huh?

[PoliTech]

"With the future of Microsoft now in question ..." Huh? Who is questioning the future of Microsoft? Ya got a link timothy?

Conflict of Interest

[Freshly Exhumed]

Note that the memo is presented here by Xconomy, which happens to have this guy as a member 'Xconomist'. So, read just the memo if you care, but skip the puffery all around it.

Microsoft then and now

[onyxruby]

Comparing Microsoft then and now and you've got to make a number of comparisons on why they grew back then compared to being stagnant as week old molasses now.

No stack ranking. Employees could focus on their job instead of everyone else's job.
More risk taking. They were willing to try new products without worrying nearly as much about eating into their own sales for another product.
Diversity. This was when Windows NT 3.1 was about to be released and it supported DEC Alpha as well as MIPS CPU's.
Mind-share. They realized mind share was more important than an iron fisted DRM approach and didn't get absurd with DRM.
Cheaper. At that time Unix workstations were a fair bit more expensive than Windows based computers and Microsoft was actually the cheaper option for the masses.
Options. You could run just about anything you wanted with their common platform.

I've got to imagine that I'm far from the only person that misses Microsoft from the days of old, before they became soul crushing monopoly that destroyed innovation at every opportunity. Would you believe people actually camped out overnight for Windows 95 and stores opened up at midnight just to sell it?

Microsoft has since declared war on their employees, vendors, professionals, OEM's and just about everyone else in the industry. Nowadays they pull stunts like the Windows RT walled garden and call that diversity. Microsoft used to be a great company, but today that's as much history as the DEC Alpha.

Re:Microsoft then and now

[Anonymous Coward]

before they became soul crushing monopoly that destroyed innovation at every opportunity. Would you believe people actually camped out overnight for Windows 95

You didn't go back far enough. Gates was a robber baron in the mode of JP Morgan and Rockefeller (I'm sure he carefully read their bio's, he's the type who would) from the get-go. Look at what he did to IBM and half of the software industry with OS/2, for starters.

Re:Microsoft then and now

[onyxruby]

Actually, that was about the time of OS/2, and having watched that unfold you really have to say that was more IBM doing it to themselves than Microsoft doing it to them (it was expensive, pain in the ass to use, device drivers were rare and it was intuitive as an ancient foreign language - even if it was technically superior in just about every way).

Microsoft would in the following years perform many things that well justified their being sued for being a monopoly and of being a modern robber baron, but OS/2 wasn't one of them. Your probably thinking of of CP/M.

Re:Microsoft then and now

[0123456]

From what I remember, OS/2 was technically superior, but required more expensive hardware and came with no bundled apps. Did it even have a text editor?

Re:Microsoft then and now

[onyxruby]

The IBM hardware it came out on the time if you bought your system directly from IBM (instead of off the shelf) included a SCSI drive and motherboard with MCA architecture (first 32bit bus on a PC). I can't recall it requiring more expensive hardware if you bought the MS version though that would run on non-IBM hardware. Regardless the differences in hardware costs for SCSI was enough to help make OS2 too expensive for many.

It's been a lot of years since I've played with it, however I fuzzy memories about having to edit config files on it. I don't recall if the text editor I used was stock or not, I'm sure someone here would know. I can say for certain that at the time the Lotus notes suite from IBM was quite the serious competitor to Microsoft Office. IBM very distinctly did not include their office suite with OS/2.

Re:Microsoft then and now

[justthinkit]

Comparing Microsoft then and now and you've got to make a number of comparisons on why they grew back then compared to being stagnant as week old molasses now.

No stack ranking...SNIP...

You can stop right there.

Re:Microsoft then and now

[Pulzar]

Every tech company I've worked at had some kind of a version of "stack ranking", and some were dysfunctional and some functioned very well. I don't think stack ranking has anything to do with it... It's a simple math problem --- you have some amount of money to divvy up, and you have to identify the most important and most worthy people to spend the most on. I think most people understand that.

The alternative of giving everybody the same reward only works at the smallest companies where the general performance bell curve hasn't started to form.

Where things run into problems is when you allow politics, favours, and poor evaluation skills by managers determine your "stack locations", at which point you start creating resentment which fuels the next round of evaluations.

Re:Microsoft then and now

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I was in the PC software business at the time. Microsoft and IBM were co-developers of OS/2 towards the end of the '80s (1987 IIRC). That was waaaaay before Windows 95. Microsoft's chief architect (after Gates) at the time, Gordon Letwin, was the architect of OS/2. After it was released, Gates went on a tour pitching OS/2 (I heard him give a talk once) but it was slow to pick up because PC's were still considered something of a novelty in business - senior executives in particular actually took pride in telling people they didn't know how to log onto a PC! (I suppose you can find parallels today where older folks proudly say they don't know the first thing about Facebook). And people doing serious scientific and engineering computing didn't want a PC, whether with DOS, OS/2, or something else - they wanted either access to a VAX, or a workstation from Sun or one of its many competitors.

Meanwhile Intel continued to pump out new generations of CPUs that kicked the crap out of their previous generation. And IBM was still regarded with fear and suspicion by the rest of the industry - almost exactly the same way Microsoft is regarded now, when it tries to interest vendors in Windows Phone OS. Gates, being the ruthless businessman that he was/is, saw a perfect opportunity to dump his partnership with IBM and screw all of Microsoft's competitors in the PC application software business at the same time, by shifting all of this OS/2 development resources onto Windows (which was frankly a joke before version 3.0). Microsoft released the Mac-like Windows 3.0 to great fanfare in 1990; everyone was overjoyed except IBM and the PC application developers that Microsoft screwed over. In fact Windows 3.0 was not a true operating system, but rather a 32-bit, non-preemptive multitasking environment that ran on top of 16-bit DOS; if that sounds hairy, that's because it was, and it was in fact probably the buggiest operating system ever to sell in large quantities. Windows PCs were notorious for requiring reboots several times a day because it was very easy for an application to either hang the system or to exhaust all of Windows' absurdly limited resources (many system-wide resources were limited to 64K). By comparison, OS/2 was rock solid, but that's not where the applications were, so hardly anybody was buying it. You can say that IBM's marketing sucked, and maybe it did, but the fact was that the playing field was tilted so far in Microsoft's favor that it's hard to see what combination of marketing and engineering savvy above and beyond what IBM had at the time would've produced better results for OS/2.

Windows 3.0 was followed by Win 3.1, which was a tad less buggy but not much, especially because Microsoft was pushing their new OLE (COM-based GUI components that could be shared across applications) along with it, and OLE was frankly a technical abomination. Finally, in 1995 Microsoft released Windows 95, which eliminated most of Windows' dependence on MS-DOS - but no sooner had that release gone out the door, sent off with the wild geek dance on stage from Bill Gates, than a startup called Netscape came along promoting something called the World Wide Web, which Bill had obviously had either never heard of, or heard once or twice in a meeting and mentally filed away under "more useless academic geegaws".

Re:Microsoft then and now

[ruir]

Microsoft was in OS/2 only to make sure it didnt go forward and to get new ideas. They didnt want to share the status quo with IBM.

Re:Microsoft then and now

[ruir]

The only thing I can see now and then, is that they lost they foothold of OEM bullying with vendors with the mobile platform, and Apple and Google are too big for them to "innovate" as usual, trowing money around to buy the new products (i.e. too big to buy). That is the bigger of their problems

Re:Microsoft then and now

[yuhong]

In fact, MS was the one who released the first OS/2 2.0 SDKs to developers in the first place. I wrote a blog article relating to what happened to the project: http://yuhongbao.blogspot.ca/2012/12/about-ms-os2-20-fiasco-px00307-and-dr.html

Re:Microsoft then and now

[Aviation Pete]

Diversity. This was when Windows NT 3.1 was about to be released and it supported DEC Alpha as well as MIPS CPU's.

Diversity was never in favor at MS. They were forced to support DEC Alpha. The NT team had been recruited straight from DEC, and when DEC complained, MS agreed to support Alpha with their new OS. Which did not prevent DEC from wasting the opportunity they had with Alpha, but this is a different story. See http://www.bolenk.com/computer/history-of-windows-nt.php

Re:Microsoft then and now

[onyxruby]

Thanks for the link and bit on the DEC Alpha. I had always understood Microsoft's standpoint on diversity as one meant to prevent a single supplier from being able to do them as they did to others.

MSR: How not to do things....

[Alomex]

From the perspective of an academic MSR is a fantastic place, in the same way as an all inclusive resort would be fantastic place from the perspective of a vacationing tourist.

From the perspective of the corporation MSR is suboptimal way to establish an R&D arm. This imperils the very existence of MSR since there is no direct or indirect revenue connection to the work in MSR. This much was clear from day one and perfectly consistent with the small stature of Nathan Myrhvold, a patent troll and poseur which managed to get Bill Gates ear for a little while.

Re:The future of Microsoft now in question ... Huh

[0123456]

Who is questioning the future of Microsoft?

Most of the tech industry?

I certainly have a hard time seeing why anyone will care about Microsoft in ten years. Maybe even five, if they keep producing crap like Window 8.

Maybe Google will buy them, just for grins.

The memo has previously been published...

[su5so10]

... as part of Rick Rashid's Festschrift. http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/183790/Rick%20Rashid's%20Festschrift%207.5.12.pdf starting at page 131.

Forward thinking 20 years ago???

[QuietLagoon]

it's interesting to see how forward-thinking the company was 20 years ago.

If Microsoft really were forward thinking 20 years ago, they would not be having the troubles they are currently having.

Re:Forward thinking 20 years ago???

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard to accurately control the future 20 years from now even if you make very good decisions today.

Re:Forward thinking 20 years ago???

[jbolden]

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5016f5926bb3f74e3c000002-618-/chart-of-the-day-microsofts-revenue-by-segment-july-2012.jpg

Re:Forward thinking 20 years ago???

[timeOday]

Define "forward thinking." Microsoft has been paranoid against following the inevitable trajectory of all tech companies since day 1, and has invested heavily in all the right areas to prevent it from happening. But it still happened anyways. Maybe one day it will wither and die, but be lucky enough to be re-born as a different company that strikes gold in some new area, like Apple was (and countless other defunct tech companies attempting a similar strategy were not). But for now Microsoft is still making tons of money at being Microsoft.

Re:The future of Microsoft now in question ... Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the tech industry?

But can we be sure that it's not just the view that we see through slashdot-glasses? Because Microsoft's sales have been very good lately.

Apple ATG

[Anonymous Coward]

He pisses on Apple ATG in the memo, then creates exactly what he thought ATG was at MSFT.

MS Research: 20 Years, 20 Billion Down

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Not a damn thing to show.

Re:MS Research: 20 Years, 20 Billion Down

[Anonymous Coward]

My complete lack of DLL hell and BSOD's over the last 5 years tells me that you're wrong.

Re:MS Research: 20 Years, 20 Billion Down

[Anonymous Coward]

Your number is wrong too, but see: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/about/techtransfer/default.aspx

Haven for pioneers

[mt2014]

Pioneers in many areas have moved to MSR. From a few I have had a please to interact mentioned MSR positively. It is indeed a great place where these individuals are spared from structure, hierarchy, deadlines and funding issues.

MS Research as intellectual roach motel

[echtertyp]

Someone years ago put it best: Microsoft Research was really conceived as an intellectual roach motel. The idea was to use the enormous amounts of cash generated 20 years ago by Microsoft's monopoly to essentially pay top talent to not produce anything for the public domain. If you could lure a top CS researcher to MS Research and then pay him craploads of $$$ to spin stuff that would never see the light of day, that was one less high IQ guy contributing to potential MS competitors. It almost worked. The flaw was that creative men are not creative in response to money, they are creative because it is in their DNA, like artists. They create because they have to, it is who they are. Ayn Rand and Bill Gates and their kind never seem to get this.

Re:MS Research as intellectual roach motel

[Anonymous Coward]

If you could lure a top CS researcher to MS Research and then pay him craploads of $$$ to spin stuff that would never see the light of day

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx?t=publications

Wow.. they are pretty stupid since they let them publish all their research. lol.. oh well.. an anti-ms troll like you is not concerned with facts anyway.

Microsoft's Doom is in Slide/Note 4 of 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Research - Create new technology which complements our product strategy and our vision for personal computing in the next decade.

Their focus is on *their* vision and *their* product strategy.

Think of every abortion they've tried to force on us. Bob. Zune. WM. Ribbon. Surface. Office365. 8. They are all linked by a common thread: The great heyday of HP and Apple, by contrast, focused on vision of that which Consumers wanted. Strategy was, "Develop that and give it to them!"

Re:The future of Microsoft now in question ... Huh

[0123456]

But can we be sure that it's not just the view that we see through slashdot-glasses?

Everyone I know, tech user or otherwise, who's seen Window 8 says 'WTF were they thinking?' or words to that effect.

Sure, companies continue to buy Window 8 PCs, wipe them, and install Windows 7, but they're already thinking about what to do when Windows 7 goes out of support.

Re:The future of Microsoft now in question ... Huh

[funkboy]

I think he meant "the future of M$ leadership now in question" given that the "chair" is on his way out; he just phrased it in an unclear way...

So when did they develop...

[funkboy]

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish?

Execution

[Horshu]

They come up with some good ideas in research. Their main problem IMO is that they are too conservative about releasing some of their projects, or in some cases emphasizing them (i.e. keeping indexed searches off by default until Google Toolbar started doing fast desktop searches). They've got infrastructure out the wazoo, but it's rare that the fully utilize it.

21 Page Memo?

[Anonymous Coward]

A memo is defined as a short note, if this guy's memos were 21 pages long, how long were the regular notes he wrote?

Re:21 Page Memo?

[Horshu]

Nice substance. "B-b-b-ut it's not a memo...it's too looooong!"

Very well put

[Anonymous Coward]

MS was my bread and butter for years. I could not have afforded to get into computing without Microsoft. Cliche's stick around for a reason - they capture something eternal. Power corrupts. See Apple. See Oracle. See Google. See Facebook. All darlings in their day. But they always conflate success with superiority, and then they go bad.

Origional Microsoft Research ..

[codeusirae]

What, if anything has Microsoft Research ever originated that has led directly to generating a new type of market?

Re:Origional Microsoft Research ..

[Anonymous Coward]

generating a new type of market?

is not something a research organization does. Microsoft Research is not a business. They aim to do pure research. If you want to see what they've done, you're free to see all their published data.

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/catalog/default.aspx?t=publications

I'm sure all of those are beyond your mental capacity. Its OK.

Re:Origional Microsoft Research ..

[codeusirae]

Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated

Re:The future of Microsoft now in question ... Huh

[ruir]

You need a link for that? In which cave have you been living in the last couple of decades?

Truth

[NewYork]

Governments are Corporations cannot appreciate/accommodate people who think out-of-the-box.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias

Allegiance

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that for me, the best thing to come out of Microsoft Research is a game: Allegiance

Re:The future of Microsoft now in question ... Huh

[PoliTech]

Back in my cave in Oct 1993 the MS stock price was $2.68 Today in my cave the Oct 2013 MS stock price: 33.28 This year alone MS's stock price as gone up more than six dollars.