From "What's New Now from Ziff Davis" Newsletter (commentary below the excerpt):
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2071091,00.asp

Microsoft seems to have won over skeptical robot developers with the release of its new Robotics Studio product. The product's pretty neat, it lets you program real robots, or virtual instantiations of them that live inside your PC. Even better, it's free to download and play with - you'll just pay when you actually use it to control an autonomous mechatron of your own design. Our story is chock full of details on how Microsoft won over the robotics community, what's new inside the software, and where to download it yourself, for free.