Microsoft Gives Startups Tech Boost

Microsoft is betting that its extensive IP portfolio is an intellectual greenhouse that can sow the seeds of entrepreneurship. Wednesday, at a gathering of venture capitalists, Microsoft announced a new program targeting technology startups called Microsoft Intellectual Property (IP) Ventures.

Microsoft IP Ventures will license out twenty different Microsoft technologies from a variety of internal disciplines including artificial intelligence, usability, graphics, security, gaming, multimedia and databases. The number of available technologies will grow in step with the program.

Some of the technologies are projects from Microsoft Research and development efforts, including its "Wallop" social computing portal software. Windows is a prerequisite for many of the technologies to function.

"Our research labs and efforts across the company have created a large portfolio of innovative technologies that extend the reach of personal computing today, with much of it going into Microsoft products," said Rick Rashid, senior vice president of Microsoft Research. "At any given time, there are hundreds of projects under way at Microsoft. IP Ventures provides yet another vehicle for extending this reach and delivering innovations to customers in a variety of areas."

Microsoft revealed its intention to explore IP licensing in the latter half of 2003. Last month Microsoft signed an intellectual property licensing agreement with Inrix, a Seattle startup, for technology developed by its Windows product team and from Microsoft Research. Inrix will use real-time traffic prediction software to develop custom solutions. Hardware vendors SMC and D-Link have agreed to license Windows Connect Now to simplify the provisioning of wireless networks.

"It makes perfect sense and is a pragmatic thing for Microsoft to do," said Laura DiDio, a senior analyst with Yankee Group. "As we all know there have been calls for Microsoft to open up its APIs and source code. It helps both Microsoft and third parties to license things out; it keeps things civil and is a nice revenue stream."

A complete list of available technologies is available from the IP Ventures Web site.