Microsoft is unlikely to shut down MS Research.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/research/default.aspx
[edit] If I have my James Whittaker's straight, he worked at Microsoft before going to Google. If I don't, he probably didn't.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/research/default.aspx
[edit] If I have my James Whittaker's straight, he worked at Microsoft before going to Google. If I don't, he probably didn't.
I think you mistook Google Labs with Google Research, Google Labs was sort of a playground for engineers more than a research division. Google Research is as serious as an academic division is inside a big company.
I'm not in any way affiliated with any of both, though I know people who interned/work at both. In fact I would take Microsoft Research over Google Research if I had to choose a "favorite" one... but I'm just clearing a common misconception with the Google Labs closure and people thinking Google closed their entire research division.
Alive, yes. Kicking?
I figured out what was bothering me about the comparison between Google Research and MS Research in light of the shutdown of Google Labs. The Google Research site is essentially a bibliography for academics, Microsoft Research site has papers, blogs, and downloads -- in true Microsoft tradition, it is a BLOB not an RDBMS table.
Microsoft Research is clearly reflects a hacker culture, Google's reflects a culture where the idea that labs are not necessary to research holds sway. Google Research reflects an approach more akin to the social science of sociology, than physics.