This week, Microsoft announced at the RoboBusiness Conference and Exposition a Windows-based application for academic, hobbyist and commercial developers to easily create robotic applications. Of note, iRobot Corporation, the maker of the cool Roomba Vacuum, programs its robots in Linux.

One Microsoft partner is LEGO: “Microsoft, together with the upcoming LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT, will help further amplify the impact of robotics,” said Søren Lund, director of LEGO MINDSTORMS at the LEGO Group.

Microsoft also is investing in robotics research through the new Center for Robotics Innovation at Carnegie Mellon. [UPDATE: For a tour of CM’s robotics lab, check out this video via Robert Scoble.]

For a video of Tandy Trower, General Manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group, click here.

[thanks, Thorn Stevens]