[etrain]

Microsoft is 23 years older than Google and it usually takes time for a corporation to create an R&D lab. Given Google's rich academic roots this happened faster there than usual. Google is doing a good job given that it's a relatively young company. I hope their research output continues to increase in quality and volume.

If you go by publication count alone, I suspect that IBM Research is still near the top. They have a large research organization that made some fundamental contributions in computer science in everything from speech recognition to databases.

[serge2k]

Microsoft research was only formed in 1991, according to wiki.

[lettergram]

I'd also assume Google hires MANY more PhD's than Microsoft did and does. Could be wrong though.