Microsoft Research Asia: 2012 in Review

Posted by Hsiao-Wuen Hon, managing director of Microsoft Research Asia

In China, 2012 is the Year of the Dragon, a particularly auspicious year in Chinese culture. I am very glad to see that this also has been a good year both for Microsoft and for Microsoft Research Asia. Thanks to the efforts of the lab and our continuing collaboration with our Asian academic partners, I am proud to share some highlights from this year.

Thanks to collaboration between our lab and Microsoft Office Division China, the Engkoo Pinyin IME Beta, a cloud-based, Chinese-language input method using Bing search capability, was released. The Engkoo Pinyin IME Beta has changed the traditional concept of input-method editors (IME) by adding superior input quality and transforming the IME into a search engine. Following the lab’s unique, deployment-driven research model, the team created a new software-development model that uses social media to garner user feedback in real time and shorten the update cycle.