Microsoft Research does some really cool stuff. Do they really work for the same company as the people who make Windows and Office? I can't imagine two more diametrically different organizations.
I think it is hard to top what AT&T did with Bell Labs. They had a government mandated monopoly with tons of money to fund basic scientific research and ended up with a few Nobel prizes in the process. I think the more apt organization for the OP however would be Xerox PARC.
are you privy to research in either of the organizations. I know its great to revere age old organizations but as we are speaking the best research is probably being conducted in a place we least expect. I am not privy to research at Ma Bell or only the published elements of Microsoft Research - so your reaction is more of an instinct than any factual basis.
Bell Lab's results are widely known. I'll just point to two: C and the Transistor, as being pretty hard to beat (there's much more).
In any case, the parent commenters point wasn't the difference in the two research lab's results, but the difference in philosophies between the labs and their respective parent companies.
Another notable one is the original discovery of the cosmic microwave background, the primordial echo of the Big Bang, which is still being investigated today. That was a 1974 Nobel Prize.
My broad point was comparing an age old institution with Young one is not fair and more or less 100 years from now, who knows where things would be are.
Its not comparing apples to apples but again, if dissing MSR for not being Bell Labs - great then.
My point it is there can never be a Bell Labs again. Very few organizations have the resources to fund basic sciences and have all the talent they had under one roof.
