Microsoft Live Labs is a catalyst for the convergence of two critical facets of technology development. The aim is to inspire new thinking and new approaches to product innovation.
By Julie Evans
Live Labs was founded by Gary Flake, technical fellow at Microsoft, who saw the need to form a trench in the middle between the long-term nature of researchers and the near-term focus of engineers.
“… there’s an intersecting point somewhere in the middle where there’s this convergence of research and engineering where a lot of interesting things happen,” Flake said. “The notion of being a little bit in the middle is one that’s a little bit awkward for Microsoft. We wanted Live Labs to be a place that was really having a home in the middle between these extremes. We apply this pattern not just on the continuum between engineering and research, but we also think about it in terms of tactics versus strategy, long-term versus short-term, horizontal platforms versus vertical engineering. In every case, we are aspiring to try to make the market connect the dots between the two extremes.”
