I've been giving credit to them over recent years for doing a lot of good work in OS design, programming languages, and verification technology. Unlike Microsoft Engineering, Microsoft Research is pretty kick-ass. Truth be told, much of what they do copies other work in some way and tries to improve on it. Example: VerveOS's Nucleus copied the old IME mainframes with a central component called Nucleus with similar features. They pretend like they were original cuz everyone forgets about the old systems. ;) Yet, their copying that approach to split development and verification was a really smart move. It's how they got results.

I encouraged Microsoft Research to continue investing in tooling and verification tech that represents The Right Thing approach to systems. That pieces of it drift to their commercial products is even better. :)