Will Microsoft Go Robotic? The answer: yes. Microsoft is moving several of its pieces into play.

Microsoft Research is working with Carnegie Mellon to launch the Center for Innovative Robotics. "Microsoft also has several academic and commercial partners that plan to support its software. Those include CMU, Lego, CoroWare, KUKA Robot Group, Robosoft and MobileRobots."

From the Entertainment & Devices Division, comes, not surprisingly, Windows embedded as the preferred robot OS. A neat twist comes in reusing the AGEIA relationship, using PhysX engine not only for Xbox games but also for robotics simulation.

The Platform Products Division is kicking in a customized Visual Studio IDE. The .Net and CLR model is being applied to robotics. Naturally, this means that the MSDN weight is being put to generating articles, tutorials, and sample code.

They are packing the combined effort as the Microsoft Robotics Studio. If you are interested, download the community technical preview (CTP) here.

As a .Net developer, I am pretty excited about this, though I expect this move will generate some controversy.