Do people within Microsoft really consider Microsoft Research to be a drain on company resources as implied by a couple of those comments?

Microsoft research produces some amazing gems. They are a case study for what good things can happen when you let 2 or 3 really smart geeks works on problems which have yet to be solved.

Unfortunately, MS research is pretty disconnected from the product teams and as a result, they tend to innovate in a vacuum. As a result very rarely are their innovations integrated into the products. They therefore come off as a drain on the company.

Or some of the products are so advanced that the the product teams won't deal with the fruits of the research for many years.

I remember being excited about Microsoft's SenseCam just a little under 10 years ago. 4-5 years later I thought the product would never be available to consumers, and lo and behold, it's finally become technology that is available to the public... but man did that take a long time.

I did when I worked there. The return on investment relative to what the product groups were creating was off the charts. I was all for taking the money and talent to think about long term issues, but it was just distasteful how poorly value was captured from it.

It's no secret that the idea behind Microsoft Research is to keep the talent from working anywhere else. They don't have to ship a darned thing, as long as Google, Apple, or Sun don't either.

I got that impression during an interview with them in Cambridge in 2005. They genuinely couldn't promise that anything that was done was going to end up in a product or would actually be used.

Fortunately I was too crap to be considered a threat if I wasn't hired :)

> I heard he's leaving due to the health benefits changes!

What happened?

Microsoft announced perhaps two years ago that the health benefits were being reduced starting January 2013

non-zero copays and deductibles I believe

Pretty sure with Sinofsky's salary that's not a huge deal.

So it's a populist note on which to leave. Message to underlings: "prepare to be disappointed with current leadership"

Whoever made that comment was probably joking.

If you didn't read the comments, they're kind of the highlight of this submission.

edit: uh, sorry, this isn't meant as any sort of commentary other than "Hey, if you don't normally look at the comments, I think you're meant to on this one." :/

You have to read those blog comments with a grain of salt though.

Most of the commenters appear to be very unhappy employees. And some of them are obvious trolls who have never worked at MS but pretend to.

" Why do we need to pay $1M+ (with benefits) to a VP in Finance, Purchasing, Customer Service and IT? These services are available for 1/100th of the cost."

A comment from that article that proves your points.

Anything in particular? That seems like damnation by faint praise as far as I was willing to read.

It's a blog frequented by employees (albeit mostly disgruntled ones).

Most enlightening comment to me:

"I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the EU mess yet. Sinofski was given responsibility by the board for ensuring that MS stayed compliant with the agreement regarding browser choice in Windows. Now, MS is facing a possible 10 BILLION dollar enema by the EU because Sinofski couldn't be bothered by something as trivial as a check box in Windows."