This pattern is not merely about new applications. It's about a revolution in how we create, share and refine anything that can be digitally encoded--be it news and information, artistic forms, scientific breakthroughs, personal communications, economic transactions, and, yes, even software. This is not Web 2.0. It's World 2.0.

Not all of them are going to work. Not all of them are going to resonate with users.

We can streamline the whole process of how we innovate.

It's a much more continuous process.

It will be the pre-eminent applied research laboratory for Internet technologies. This is a very exciting opportunity for researchers and technologists to have an immediate impact on the next evolution of Microsoft's Internet products and services...

To the extent this helps us in any sort of competition, that's great, but that's actually a side effect. It's a happy side effect, nonetheless.