Microsoft announces new approach to software research

Brussels, 16 Jun 2005

Microsoft has announced a new approach to personal computing research, claiming that the principles that previously defined computing have changed.

Speaking on 15 June, managing director of Microsoft Research Cambridge Andrew Herbert said that the availability of faster, more powerful processors has made much of the basis of 20th century software design obsolete.

'We've reached an inflection point where hardware has changed so much that a new approach is required on the software side. This shift liberates us from previous constraints, enabling us to create the building blocks for new types of software for the next century of computing,' said Mr Herbert.

While computer software was once designed to overcome hardware limitations, such as the substitution of virtual for real memory, it can now take advantage of modern programming languages that reduce the need for virtual memory and take advantage of this greater capacity to improve file searching and indexing, he said.

Some of the challenges currently being addressed by Microsoft Research are:
- systems such as self-checking software proofs that can overcome current testing limitations to create more stable, virus-free software;
- new access models providing improved methods to search and organise files and ensure that users are not swamped by information overload as can happen when using hierarchical systems;
- methods of computer interaction, moving software away from the desktop to new areas, such as interactive surfaces;
- 'intelligent' software based on machine perception.

CORDIS RTD-NEWS / © European Communities
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