FW: Microsoft: (NYT) Picks England As Site Of Research Lab

Joseph R. Kiniry (kiniry@cs.caltech.edu)
Mon, 23 Jun 1997 11:58:39 -0700 (PDT)


Joe Barrera writes:
> Robert,
>
> Here's your chance to work in England *and* for Microsoft... :-)
>
> - Joe
>
> Joseph S. Barrera III (joebar@microsoft.com)
> http://research.microsoft.com/~joebar
> Phone, Office: (415) 778-8227; Cellular: (415) 601-3719; Home: (415)
> 588-4801
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> Microsoft Picks England As Site Of Research Lab
>
> By STEVE LOHR c.1997 N.Y. Times News Service
>
> Microsoft Corp., intent on building a world-class research team, has
> decided that it needs to be a bit more worldly.
>
> The company took a significant step in that direction Tuesday when it
> announced that it would spend $80 million to set up a research
> laboratory in Cambridge, England, in collaboration with Cambridge
> University.
>
> The lab will be headed by Roger Needham, a Cambridge professor and a
> research pioneer in computer systems, and will eventually employ 40
> full-time research fellows, mostly from Europe. Microsoft will also
> invest $16 million in a venture fund to back technology start-ups
> in the area.

ah, another good computer scientist is bought off by the big boys...

> ``Microsoft is now picking up that leadership challenge in
> research,'' said Ed Lazowska, chairman of the computer science and
> engineering department at the University of Washington. ``Microsoft is
> taking advantage of its de facto monopoly to build one of the world's
> great research organizations. And I think it's going to affect the
> nation in really important ways.''

i'm glad i didn't go to washington now - they seem to all be in billy
g's pocket as well. any respectable scientist wouldn't give this kind
of lip-service to m$. (of course, if you read the above in a
different, more ominous way, ed is saying something quite
different...)

> If there is a single person who most belies the notion of Microsoft
> employees as being narrow, grim and driven, it is the man mainly
> responsible for setting up the Cambridge lab, Myhrvold. The
> irreverent, red-bearded Myhrvold, 37, has wide-ranging interests
> and tastes, comfortable discussing cosmology or competing
> in the world barbecue contest, as he has done in recent years, winning
> once.

oh yes, the brilliant beautiful multi-talented nathan. ah, now
everything is "O.K." with m$ since they have someone as wonderful and
"irreverent" as nathan around... <puke>

joe