Opening the Microsoft treasure chest

I walked through King Cross tube station today and was faced with a barrage of Mac ads about how innovative and easy the Mac platform is compared to the PC. It made me sigh as I thought about the simplicity of the messaing compared with the complexity of messaging when you have a massive channel of partners (OEM's) who want to control their cusotmer message in a subtly different way to Microsoft. It creates challenges that allow for these creative "attacks" on the PC and I think that's just something we'll have to live with. No matter how "cool" Vista is or becomes, there is a massive benfit that Apple has to controlling the whole value chain of hardware, software and experience. The closest we come is the mega branding of the Waterloo tube station with Vista messages.

What does this have to do with the headline of this article? Not much really but it got me thinking about where Microsoft innovates is often behind the scenes with research of the kind discussed in the NY Times today. Regardless of the barbs we get about lack of innovation, it's comforting to know that we have people in Research labs doing this kind of work that will never really be seen by the typical computer user but it will be felt. Ironically, it will also be felt regardless of which platform you use - Linux, PC, Mac or otherwise.

It reminded me of a comment Matteo Berluchi of Skinkers said to me a while back upon fiding the technolgy they needed for their solution in a Microsoft Research patent

"Microsoft has this huge treasure chest of technology in MSR, much of which will never see the light of day as it's not commericalised by Microsoft. It's a shame as there is some amazing stuff in there"

He's right. If you haven't seen how you can get your hands on some of this, maybe now is a good time to have a look?

 

Link to Researchers Track Down a Plague of Fake Web Pages - New York Times

Comments

• Anonymous
  March 21, 2007
  As a MS customer since DOS 3.11 days, it kills me that the PR people don't do a better job describing the accomplishments over the past 20 years and practically cede innovation and "coolness" to Google and Apple. There are so many interesting stories at Microsoft to tell, but they don't rise above the noise.

• Anonymous
  March 25, 2007
  The comment has been removed