I can't think of anything from Microsoft Research that has translated into an actual product (other than maybe the Kinect.. though I think a lot of that IP was bought). They do some neat stuff I guess, but it seems like a giant money sink. Can anyone prove my wrong?

As an aside, I had a professor from the MS Research lab in Santa Barbara who was a complete moron. Seemed like he was some kind of middle manager at MS and then went to Research for an early semi-retirement