Microsoft talks up research and green credentials
Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer says the firm won’t cut back on innovation efforts to save cash. Craig Mundie also says the company is ready to play its role in tackling environmental issues.
Mundie has been on something of a PR offensive this week, giving interviews to Computerworl and hosting a tour of Microsoft headquarters for the BBC. He told Computerworld that in tough economic times, the right solution is not to slash research budgets, but rather to focus more on research and innovation. According to Mundie, research can act as a shock absorber to the business over the long term by reducing the likelihood of suddenly facing lost business after a rival develops a new technology.
He also predicts that the next major change in computing will come when somebody develops the “killer apps” that shift the standard model of computing from the desktop to the “client plus cloud” set-up. This will, in his opinion, be accompanied by a widespread hardware shift from single processors to multi-core computing, with software being redesigned to run as parallel applications.
Speaking to the BBC, Mundie said the firm would contribute to environmental improvements in multiple ways. He argues that Microsoft should not just play a role by improving its own energy efficiency, but by developing products which can help companies to do the same. He pointed to an application which will allow firms to better measure their carbon production across different elements of the business.
He also argued that technology can only properly help solve national problems through a combination of corporate investment and publicly funded research projects. Mundie has a long involvement in advising government having been on the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee since 2000. He’s recently joined Google chief Eric Schmidt as part of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
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May 15th, 2009
“Craig Mundie also says the company is ready to play its role in tackling environmental issues.”
Mr Mundie could prove his bona fides by recovering all the PCs that have been dumped in landfill as a result of the Wintel duopoly’s business model, based as it is on planned obsolescence.