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If Steve Wozniak is worried Microsoft is now more innovative than Apple, the root cause for that concern undoubtedly lies within Microsoft’s network of research labs. Dotted around the globe, from Redmond to India and Asia via the UK, these university-style research institutions are the quiet engines behind innovations such as the Kinect depth camera which translates human movements into computable gestures, and Xbox users’ movements into gameplay.

Another notable Microsoft product that its research arm has played a substantial role in developing is the Bing search engine — with researchers knuckling down to crack problems such as how to compute relevance and design the auction mechanisms underlying search advertising. Microsoft Research has also helped to improve the...