^^ this. I didn't known about MSR until I became a grad student in comp sci and started seeing the name pop up time and again in the literature whether it was graphics, computer vision, AI, etc etc.

If you like computer science, you like MSR. (Plus, they gave the world F# and C# which are an oasis in the world of enterprise development)

http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?q=microsoft+research...