Ruh-roh — the Robotics division of Microsoft Research has been suspended…

Microsoft Research LogoToday, as part of Microsoft’s restructuring plan, the Robotics division of Microsoft Research has been suspended, according to a tweet from Ashley Feniello, the current head of the division:

It is now highly unlikely that the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio will ever be again updated, however forum members (MVPs) may still offer limited support. Note that Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio has not been updated or patched since version 4.0, which was released on March 8th, 2012.

While not the greatest news from a ToyBots standpoint — MRDS was a bit complicated and still on the journey to simplification and ease of use. On the other hand, the platform did have the advantage of extensibility, and supported an enormous number of robotics platforms: