I have more respect for Microsoft. Microsoft never pretends to be anything other than a corporation trying to maximize profits. Google try to pose as friend by supporting some open source projects, but when it comes to issues like sucking up to the Chinese, censorship, and net neutrality we see their true colors.
"Spec#", the proof system for C#, was a research result
Pretty sad that decades of $500M a year have led to the "innovation" of stealing a language feature of Eiffel and putting it into a Java clone.
Another effort in that area involved automated verification of Windows drivers [microsoft.com] to determine if they could crash the rest of the OS. That paid off. In Windows 7, every driver has to pass the static verifier before it gets signed
Nice. A lint tool for drivers.
We don't have "Cold War" with China.
Considering the rich usually run their respective countries, a good precursor to war is economic conflict. And right now the US and China are in a currency war.
Is that an ideal that's especially resonant with the Chinese culture for some reason?
No, it's something that is resonant with people that want to suppress speech. Look at recent articles and you will see similar lame excuses (ie. stopping terror, child porn, copyright protection) for allowing the NSA/FBI/etc to spy on citizens or try to take down their computers.
Anyone can make an omelet with eggs. The trick is to make one with none.