5 ms·
MSR is one of the top computer science academic-research labs in the world -- their output, especially in my field of computer vision/graphics, rivals any unive
by apu 16y ago
MSR is one of the top computer science academic-research labs in the world -- their output, especially in my field of computer vision/graphics, rivals any university at all of the top conferences. As other comments have stated, they have an unbelievable amount of freedom in tackling projects and have managed to attract lots of very good people. This freedom, however, comes at the price of research not necessarily making it to commercial product (at least not right away).
But that's not the goal. This kind of research solves the "hard" problems, hopefully making it easier for engineers at MS (or at other companies) to make a working system. This is not to downplay the latters' roles -- as any engineer can tell you, making a working system for consumers is a very time-consuming process that requires a lot of manpower, engineering, graphic and usability design, etc.
The difference is simply in division of labor. Researchers push the boundary of what's possible, engineers fill in the newly excavated space with working and polished products.
Incidentally, while Google manages to hire all the best engineers/hackers/programmers, their research groups aren't at the level of MSR's yet. In part, I think this is because their research actually makes it to product fairly fast -- because the researchers have to spend a fair amount of time integrating new research results into products. I wonder if this culture will change...
- mturmon 16y agoIt seems mistaken to assert that Google's R&D enterprise is not "pushing the boundary of what's possible". Stopping with published papers and conference prominence, when you have the reach that MSFT does, seems to be missing an opportunity. And given this, which culture is under more pressure to change, MSR's or Google's?
- pierrefar 16y agoI think you're confusing MSR with MS corporate. The corporate culture at MS seems to be very different from the MSR culture, and it's the corporate culture that people pick on. Comparing MSR with Google doesn't make sense because MSR is very independent from MS corporate, culture wise at least.
- eru 16y agoJust to give an example: MSR is developing a Haskell compiler, and they run Linux on some of their boxes.
- mturmon 16y agoNope, not confusing them. I'm well acquainted with MSR. Just saying that the focus on papers and conference presence/sponsorship has not translated into impact on products. Seems a pity.