The goal of the Microsoft Robotics Studio is to supply a software platform for the robotics community that can be used across a wide variety of hardware, applicable to a wide audience of users, and development of a wide variety of applications. As a platform, our intent is also to enable third parties to supply support for new hardware, technologies, and tools, just as Microsoft Windows provides a platform for others to bring their products and technologies to the community of PC users. So while we may populate our platform with some of our own contributions, those should not be considered exclusive to tools or libraries provided by other parties looking to provide interesting technologies for this platform.

The Microsoft Robotics Studio delivers three areas of software:

1. A scalable, extensible runtime architecture that can span a wide variety of hardware and devices. The programming interface can be used to address robots using 8-bit or 16-bit processors as well as 32-bit systems with multi-core processors and devices from simple touch sensors to laser distance finding devices.
2. A set of useful tools that make programming and debugging robot applications scenarios easier. These include a high quality visual simulation environment that uses the AGEIA Technologies™ PhysX™ engine.
3. A set of useful technology libraries services and samples to help developers get started with writing robot applications.