From the press release Microsoft Expands Internet Research Efforts With Founding of Live Labs we learn
REDMOND, Wash. — Jan. 25, 2006 —Microsoft Corp. today announced the
formation of Microsoft® Live Labs, a research partnership between
MSN® and Microsoft Research. Under the leadership of Dr. Gary William
Flake, noted industry technologist and Microsoft technical fellow, Live Labs
will consist of a dedicated group of researchers from MSN and Microsoft Research
that will work with researchers across Microsoft and the academic research
community. Live Labs will provide consistency in vision, leadership and
infrastructure as well as a nimble applied research environment that fosters
rapid innovations.
"Live Labs is a fantastic alliance between some of the best engineering and
scientific talent in the world. It will be the pre-eminent applied research
laboratory for Internet technologies," Flake said. “This is a very exciting
opportunity for researchers and technologists to have an immediate impact on the
next evolution of Microsoft's Internet products and services and will help unify
our customers' digital world so they can easily find information, pursue their
interests and enrich their lives."
The Live Labs — a confederation of dedicated technologists and affiliated
researchers in pre-existing projects from around Microsoft — will focus on
Internet-centric applied research programs including rapidly prototyping and
launching of emerging technologies, incubating entirely new inventions, and
improving and accelerating Windows Live™ offerings. This complements the
company’s continuing deep investment in basic research at Microsoft Research and
product development at MSN.
Ray Ozzie, Craig Mundie and David Vaskevitch, Microsoft’s chief technical
officers, will serve as the Live Labs Advisory Board. Ozzie sees Live Labs as an
agile environment for fast-tracking research from the lab into people’s hands.
"Live Labs is taking an exciting approach that is both organic and
consumer-driven," Ozzie said. "Within the context of a broad range of rich usage
scenarios for Windows Live, the labs will explore new ways of bringing content,
commerce and community to the Internet."
You can check out the site at http://labs.live.com/.
It's unclear to me why we felt we had to apply the "Live" brand to what
seems to be a subsection of http://research.microsoft.com/.
I guess "Live" is going to be the new ".NET" and before the end of the
year everything at Microsoft will have a "Live" version.
*sigh*