anything. So their research is obviously nothing more than a money pit.
While talking to two programmers last week the state of Microsoft's software came up. Mind you, both are Microsoft proponents and program for the Microsoft environment. What was interesting is at the same time both spoke out, "Microsoft has copied everything." As a system administrator, there is no surprise here. When MS released AD, I had already been using Novell's Directory Services. And as PC magazine stated in an article, AD was a copy of Novell's directory services. There was no learning curve when implementing AD. This is just one example. My programmer friend went on to talk about everything MS has copied from their perspective.
It actually appears that MS researches how to copy and not how to innovate. So I agree, if MS did away with their research there would be no great loss. Their research has not come up with anything new.
Medieval secrets behind Microsoft research
Summary
What would happen if Microsoft stopped doing research? Based on the researchers' demonstrations, the answer is 'not very much.'
Topics
Commentary - Thomas Edison is famous for lightbulbs and phonographs, but his major invention was Menlo Park, the world's first industrial research laboratory. Taking up two city blocks and stocked with everything that could conceivably be useful for researching, it provided the model for the great corporate labs of the 20th century — IBM, Bell, General Electric. The general principle is easy to grasp: if you give creative, disciplined people the chance to have good ideas and the means to follow them up, good things will follow.
At a Microsoft Research's open day at Cambridge recently, this line was promoted heavily in the keynote speech: fundamental research helps generate brand new technologies that give companies competitive advantages. In some cases, that's unarguable. If Intel shut down its research, it would die overnight. But what would happen if Microsoft stopped doing research? Based on the researchers' demonstrations, the answer is 'not very much'.
The ideas on show in Cambridge, while good and interesting, did not address Microsoft's core problems, nor even any of their minor ones. There was research into ecological systems, into displaying networks of influence, into low-power network hardware, into capturing people's lives as a time line. Try matching those with any known Microsoft strategy — or any conceivable one — in a way that makes compelling sense.
With Intel, you can see the research up on the screen. I've had a briefing from a solid-state physicist on a new transistor design and seen it emerge as a major strand of processor strategy three years later. With Microsoft, it's hard to trace such developments – easier now than it has been, but the link between bright idea and bottom line is very weak.
It's not as if you can't just shut down fundamental R&D. Apple had a classic operation in its Apple Research Labs, which did good work in networking, data recognition, human-computer interaction and so on. It was highly thought of, and some of its legacies live on in QuickTime and many other ideas spread throughout the Web and software development.
It ran for 11 years. Two months after he regained control of the company in 1997, Steve Jobs shut it down.
Apple survived the operation. Microsoft would too, purely in terms of the products it makes. That's because big company research in this instance is not primarily about the science and technology, it's about marketing — marketing of a kind Apple decided it just didn't need, but Microsoft needs more than ever. And they're not 21st- or even 20th-century ideas at work: the principles go back much further.
This is hidden by a common misconception about fundamental research. Ask someone to describe a scientist or inventor at work, and you'll get a picture of an eccentric loner crouched over a bench in a deserted lab late at night. What research is, really, is networking. It's about influence and status and competition and being the first to know, all of which only work well in a large group of peers. Becoming part of a big industrial R&D operation while continuing an academic style of working is landing a plum; there's money, and brand recognition among the laity. And so, the entire research community warms to the idea — and its sponsor.
This works all the way up the chain. The director of a big R&D organisation will find doors open and ears pricked at the highest level of universities and government; the divisional head will be lionized at conferences. You can see why Jobs found this a useless distraction in building the Apple brand, which stands for direct user experience. Microsoft, on the other hand, relishes every chance to become part of the infrastructure of influence. Individuals don't buy Microsoft products: they get them from organizations or by default. Microsoft's most important marketing is to those in power, and what could be a finer advertisment of your suitability for partnership than a big building in Cambridge University filled with happy academics? It worked for King Henry VIII: it can work for Steve Ballmer.
In its own way, the company is influenced too. Being a high-profile public supporter of a social good like fundamental research means you have to look very much as if you take it seriously. The first open-source MS software came from MS Research's work in IPv6; the academic necessities of collaboration and openness feed both ways and that does the company more good than it'll ever admit on the record.
What research is for, in cases like Microsoft, is status. It's a very tax efficient, with many valuable and wonderful side effects that occasionally benefit the company, but its primary task is marketing. It's proof, even in these most distressingly modern of times, that patronage works.
This article was originally posted on ZDNet UK.
Talkback Most Recent of 36 Talkback(s)
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bjbrock12th May 2009 -
I agree!
There is no real research at M$.
The only research goes into marketing and how to part you from your money faster.
Linux Geek12th May 2009 -
Microsoft has not invented...
Kind of reminds me of Linux. They seem to just try to reverse engineer everything they implement with no original ideas at all. I would think Linux supporters would praise Microsoft for this kind of work.
Herbie_Hightower12th May 2009 -
smuggnes
because they cant deal with not having a superiority complex
jdbukis@...12th May 2009 -
Your pre-school coleagues aren`t MS programmers :))))..Here is a small list
BitLocker drive encryption - OSX only has folder encryption. Windows has had that since Windows NT 3.x.
Active Directory - now being copied by Linux
Access Control List - only recently added in OSX. Has been in Windows NT 1.0.
Remote Desktop - no equivalent at all in Linux or OSX. All they have is VNC. VNC started in the Windows world that got implemented in Linux and OSX. That is the worst form of remote desktop (screen scraping). Its like a high school student's home work. With Remote Desktop, Windows users threw away VNC as trash, and Linux/OSX picked it up - they really have nothing else, but junk.
SMB - copied as Samba. Where is AppleTalk now? Apple does not know how to write an OS. They had to take BSD.
DirectX - makes Open GL like a kid's work.
Etc. etc.
Who again is overtaking who?
New in Win7...
BITS Branch Cache (Vista had something called Peer Cache) - serverless P2P.
Support for TRIM command for SSD - now perhaps being added to Linux. Another me too effort. Definitely not in OSX.
Improved (less chatty) SMB - Samba is behind again. Nobody in the Linux world could make a better SMB. MS had to do it.
VHD Booting - Linux folks probably scratching their head now. What is that? they say. How do we copy that?
Now go back to your basement and keep talking to your imaginary friends/MS programmers
Soulstorm12th May 2009 -
somewhat true
Active Directory is based on LDAP. LDAP is older. Also started on non-Windows OS's.
Also Active Directory, while in theory is great and almost impossible to live without on large networks, is still flaky as hell.
Access Control Lists have been around in Linux forever.
Remote Desktop? Yeah, personally I like it better...Linux does have XDMCP and SSH, though. It's not a lost cause.
SMB - This is not a Microsoft innovation. IBM made it and Microsoft took it later and modified it. Also keep in mind Microsoft uses the open source TCP/IP stack.
DirectX - agreed. OpenGL kinda sucks.
I think right now it's comparing apples to oranges. Linux excels at heavy server loads. Windows excels at desktop computing.
Since they had desktop markets, Linux is now attempting to catch up. It's getting better, but I don't think they are on the same level yet.
On the other hand, there are many things Linux is much better at than Windows. Windows servers are not conceivable for certain tasks.
Comnenus12th May 2009 -
For the most part i agree. just say Apache and it`s a good enough reason..
..why Linux is better as a server OS and even most MS fanboys will agree, even their marketshare on the server os side shows it (what was it, 64 percent Linux? I think so).
But as a desktop OS they still have a lot to go, even is SuSe and RedHat are in the right direction (getting support from a lot of soft/hard companies, and SOME pro apps like Maya now run on them)
PS: I said : SMB - copied and improved as SambaSoulstorm12th May 2009 -
No_Ax_to_Grind12th May 2009 -
Sad thing is windows fanboys are so ignorant...
they think these things are true.
Do you know the history of Active Directory (LDAP Kerberos)?
Open source loop-AES, TrueCrypt, eCryptfs,GBDE all released before BitLocker. Heaps of commercial solutions.
Access Control List from VMS, supported in many *nix filesystems for
a long time.
Remote Desktop, learn about X windowing systems.
SMB/CIFS is, for compatability reasons, in SAMBA. SMB/CIFS originally
designed at IBM.
AppleTalk migrated to ethertalk, which is now depreciated. Many of
the original ideas now in other technologies e.g. automatic discovery
- Bonjour.
Mac OS X is not simply BSD.
What specifically makes Open GL look like kids work in DirectX?
Embarrassing, but not at all unexpected.
Richard Flude12th May 2009 -
haha
@Richard Flude
"Mac OS X is not simply BSD."
You are so right. It's a fancy GUI on top of BSD. Apart from that.. =P
Chrissd12th May 2009 -
So what you're saying...
...is that all these technologies languished in obscuredom until Microsoft brought them out of the darkness and marketed them as standards that everyone agrees with and emulates.
Shouldn't the Linux fanboys pony up and say "Thank you"... or do egos get in the way?
I should put a /sarc in there somewhere, but I'm half serious, and half mocking...
dominigan13th May 2009 -
@dominigan
"...is that all these technologies languished in obscuredom until Microsoft brought them out of the darkness and marketed them as standards that everyone agrees with and emulates."
No, they didn't languish in obscurity. If you are old enough you would have known about them before MS got a hold of them and made proprietary MS dialects of them.
Axsimulate13th May 2009 -
@Soulstorm
BitLocker drive encryption - Apps could do this as far back as the early 80's
Active Directory - as well as exchange came from here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.500
Access Control List - Came from VMS
Remote Desktop - Predates RDC by at least a decade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System
SMB - Created by IBM.
DirectX - Open GL predates DirectX by about 3 years. DirectX was created to create Windows lock-in for games. DirectX wasn't even on par with Open GL until the very late 90's early 2000.
You: 0
Reality: 6
Try again!
Axsimulate12th May 2009 -
Is there an echo? -nt
nt=no textComnenus12th May 2009 -
Early '80s... what?
"BitLocker drive encryption - Apps could do this as far back as the early 80's"
Early 80's... Atari, Commodore, TRS-80,...
Please name the system and software.dominigan13th May 2009
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