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Microsoft Research conducts both basic and applied
research in computer science and software engineering.
Our researchers push the state of the art in computer
science and bring innovative technologies to Microsoft®
customers. When we have great ideas that work, we look
to move those ideas and technologies into Microsoft
products as rapidly as we can through technology
transfer from Microsoft Research to Microsoft products.
Technology transfer is a
top priority for Microsoft Research. Early on, Microsoft
Research created a dedicated technology transfer team to
help bridge the long-range research and near-term
product development functions within the company. This
team fosters technology transfer through one-to-one
meetings, group meetings, all-hands meetings, off-sites
and workshops. As a result, new ideas and opportunities
born in Microsoft Research are shared with the product
teams who take the research and turn it into
customer-ready features.
Microsoft Corp.’s technology transfer program provides a
unique opportunity for ongoing relationships between
research and the product teams. It also finds a balance
between the innovations developed in Microsoft Research
and the pragmatic engineering that the product teams
have to do. Strong, collaborative partnerships between
researchers and the product teams fulfill a shared
vision: to get great technologies and innovations into
Microsoft products. As a result of the relationships,
communication and trust that have developed between
researchers and product teams, we are able to bring
cutting-edge technology to our products faster and at
less cost to the company and consumers.
2006 Technology Transfers
Today Microsoft researchers touch every product that
Microsoft ships through the technology transfer process.
In partnership with product teams, we contribute new
core technologies, provide new algorithms, develop and
share code, design new user interfaces, create better
developer tools, and contribute in a host of other ways.
From the Answer Wizard in Office 95 to more than 75 new
innovations in the 2007 Microsoft Office system and
Windows Vista™, the success of this partnership
continues to grow. The technologies featured here are
just a small representation of the technology transfers
into 2006 Microsoft products.
Windows Vista
- Windows® Desktop Search
quickly searches everything on a computer for
queries and keeps search results in one place. It
provides a fast, cleaner desktop search and a much
richer user interface.
- Windows Media®
Photo/XML Paper Specification (XPS) is a portable
document format that is more flexible than past
formats. It compresses photos, produces amazing
quality that is similar to film and shows digital
pictures almost immediately with no lag time.
- Windows Sidebar is a
bar on the right-hand side of the Windows Vista user
interface that users can customize to provide
updates according to their personal interests (e.g.,
weather, traffic, stocks, concerts and sports
scores). It puts data right at users’ fingertips and
helps people stay aware of important information
without being distracting or overwhelming.
- SuperFetch predicts the
next application consumers will use and stores it in
cache mode so it loads quickly. This technology is
always learning and making changes as needed.
- Remote Scripting is a
management tool that allows scriptable remote
commands to be more securely executed over XML Web
Services, using the Web services for Management
(WS-Management) protocol. This allows more efficient
management of data centers, and eventually of
networks, buildings, infrastructure and consumer
electronics.
- IPv6. Researchers
collaborated with the Windows Vista team on this new
version of IP that is designed to run well on
high-performance networks (e.g., Gigabit Ethernet,
OC-12 and ATM) and still be efficient for
low-bandwidth networks (e.g., wireless).
2007 Microsoft Office System
- Layout engine/smart
chart labels. A new algorithm for Microsoft Office
Excel® addresses the problem of placing numerous
labels around various chart types. Chart labels are
automatically placed sensibly so they look good and
don’t overlap.
- Microsoft Office
OneNote® 2007. New code allows users to search
through audio and video recordings using a typed
text query.
- Ribbon influences.
Researchers collaborated with the product team on
development of the Ribbon in the Microsoft Office
system to improve user interface features.
- Spelling mnemonics
allows users interacting with their PC via speech to
say “A” as in any word that starts with that letter
versus having to use the military alphabet (e.g.,
Alpha, Bravo and Charlie).
- Watson. Work added to
the Watson feature enables the capture of
application state and the command sequence that led
to the computer crash.
Windows Live™ Search
- Automatic search spam
detection algorithms enable scalable detection of
low-quality Web pages that are promoted through
questionable search engine optimization techniques
used by spammers.
Online Service Tools and Monitoring
- Internet data center
(IDC) sensor networks enable operations personnel
and managers of large IDCs to monitor and take both
long-term planning and real-time corrective action
based on individual rack- and machine-level data,
such as power consumption, temperature, usage and
other key metrics.
- End-to-end online
service monitoring is a set of tools that can be
deployed individually but when deployed together can
give a robust picture of service health, extending
from intra-IDC status and measurements to the
end-user experience. It includes advanced server log
parsing, transactional and client monitoring, WAN
anomaly detection, and end-user experience modeling
components.
- Operational automation
is an “intelligent” system for automating
operational functions and decision-making between
alarm receipt and service restoration/mitigation
action(s). It is an adaptive system that combines
stated business rules, uncertainty logic, machine
learning, and real-time conditions and dependency
information to recommend the best action — even in
complex and novel situations.
Visual Studio® 2005 Team System
- Code churn measurement
across multiple versions of systems. Software
systems evolve over time due to changes in
requirements, optimization of code, updates for
security and reliability bugs, and more. Code churn,
which measures the changes made to a component over
a period of time, quantifies the extent of this
change. These indicators can be used to help inform
decisions on testing, code inspections, design
rework, financial costs associated with a delayed
release and more.
Application Compatibility Toolkit
(ACT) 5.0
- Efficient compression
of low level system interaction logs and
correlation. The ACT has three tools based on the
compression technology: the Update Compatibility
Analyzer (UCA), User Account Control Compatibility
Evaluator (UACCE) and Setup Analysis Tool (SAT). The
UCA helps reduce the impacts of security updates on
applications, while the UACCE evaluates the effect
of User Account Control in Windows Vista on
applications.
Embedded WS-Management Toolkit
- XML and Web services
for microcontrollers allow microcontrollers to be
managed by standard tools such as Microsoft
Operations Manager (MOM) even before the operating
system is running.
Windows
Hardware Development
- Static Driver
Verifier (SDV) is a static analysis tool designed to
automatically inspect C code in a Windows driver at
compile time, targeting violations of Windows Driver
Model (WDM) usage rules.
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Microsoft, Windows
Vista, Windows, Windows Media, Excel, OneNote, Windows
Live and Visual Studio are either registered trademarks
or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States
and/or other countries.
The names of actual
companies and products mentioned herein may be the
trademarks of their respective owners.
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