Medieval secrets behind Microsoft research

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.