Microsoft exec: Survival is all about research

Rick Rashid, the founding member of Microsoft Research, gives a talk at the company's Silicon Valley campus.

(Credit: Stefanie Olsen/CNET News.com)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--If you ask Rick Rashid why Microsoft is still around, he'll respond that it's because of research.

Rashid has no small stake in that answer. The founding member of Microsoft Research in 1991 and now its senior vice president, he said the unit has been responsible for everything from early code for Microsoft's entertainment products to its Xbox 360 game system.

"The reason you do basic research is for survival. You (provide) the agility to change when change is critical," Rashid told an audience at Microsoft Research's Silicon Valley lab here. "That's true for society and humanity more broadly, like if something really bad happens--war, famine, Google--you can respond."

On Thursday, Microsoft hosted its fourth research road show at its Silicon Valley campus since the local arm opened in 2001. The event, which was open to press, academia, high school students, and members of the industry, was designed to show off the company's research efforts and new technologies emerging from the labs. (The company has labs in Redmond, Wash.; Mountain View; and this summer, in Cambridge, Mass.)

To be sure, Microsoft has previewed much of the technology here at the half-day event before, including its WorldWide Telescope, a virtual telescope for peering into the heavens. But at least one project, including multitouch sensing technology LaserTouch, was newly demonstrated.

Rashid said that his group, which now has 800 Ph.D. researchers, is working on a wide range of projects, including ways to use computer science to solve world health problems like malaria and HIV.

Roy Levin, the director of Microsoft Research here, said his group focuses specifically on distributed computing. The lab, which has about 50 researchers, is working on improving the delivery of Web search results and the sponsored links that appear next to search results. Specifically, the lab is developing auction algorithms that will place the best-performing ads highest in the sponsored results, according to Levin.

Rashid said that overall, the mission of the research labs has been the same since their inception: to expand the state of the art in computer science.

"By that I don't mean do something for Microsoft. I mean move the state of the art in computer science." But, he added: "Ultimately, the goal of Microsoft Research is to make sure Microsoft is still here in 10 years."

[Norseman]

If Microsoft's future depends on the 800 PhDs that came up with the Surface-----good luck to you, Microsoft!

[amarkj]

Microsoft Research is pretty impressive! "Norseman" is obviously not well informed!

[Norseman]

I'm eager to become informed. Would you please tell me about some of their major accomplishments (which don't seem to be very well-publicized)?

[Thomas, David]

All depends on your point of view, and experience. I remember very keenly, everything they've shown, someone worked on in the past, including the LaserTouch. What is significant about that is, for one year, which I can't remember (i'm getting old), there was the idea of using lasers to cross-reference the position of an object in them, using smoke, or another element that interactive with lasers for a true virtual display (not physical by conventional means), tubular carbon fibers (which exist) to create flexible displays that are like paper ... the list goes on. If Microsoft can further this research cool, but their main problem is not creating a truly finished product. If they ever did, they'd crush everyone before they took another breath.

[expatincebu]

Research? That is what MS calls letting other companies innovate, then producing poorly implemented and designed copies of their good work, suing them into submission while marketing the hell out of the MS copy.

Microsoft is not a software company, hell, it is not even a technology company. It is just a giant marketing machine for cheaply built knockoff products.

[Mergatroid Mania]

Oh! That's how MS stays in business! I always wondered about that. I knew it certainly wasn't by listening to their customers, or selling good products at a fair price. After all, if that was the case, they would not be putting DRM into their operating systems, bloating them up by building in things like browsers, and charging enough to make it the most expensive part of your PC, all the while telling their customers this is what they want.

[mjconver]

Were they responsible for the "research" that @#$@#'d up Office 2007? And Vista?

[rshimizu12]

It's amazing what Microsoft call major breakthroughs in research. Microsoft considers Roundtable a major breakthrough in technology. How long has directional mic's been around...??

Microsoft also believes that they are the leader in research, because they spend more than anyone else. So in other words it's spending not the results that matter.

[ethana2]

Don't forget lobbying international standards organizations and threatening system retailers! Forget little things like them and you might wind up in some kind of trouble...

[mdb2]

It's a shame that some very intelligent and creative computer scientists should be brushed with such a broad stroke by those who would hijack the conversation to complain about their own particular Microsoft pet peeve. Take a look at http://research.microsoft.com for a more accurate representation of the work that they do.

[benjaminstraight]

What an endeavour.