Microsoft names Yahoo exec as head for online services group

SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft on Thursday announced it has lured an Internet search executive from Yahoo to become head of its online services group.

Qi Lu will lead Microsoft's efforts to boost its Internet search and advertising businesses.

Lu spent a decade with the pioneering California firm, serving as vice president of engineering for Yahoo Search and Advertising Technology Group before leaving in August, according to Microsoft.

"I am genuinely excited about the opportunities ahead for Microsoft to make an enormous impact on the online industry," Lu said in a release. I am looking forward to working with them to help transform the way people and businesses use the Internet to find and share information."

Lu will start his new position in January and answer directly to Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer. "I am tremendously excited to welcome Qi to Microsoft," Ballmer said.

"Dr. Lu's deep technical expertise, leadership capabilities and hard-working mentality are well-known in the technology industry, and Microsoft will benefit from his addition to our executive management team."

Lu worked at IBM's Almaden Research Center before joining Yahoo in 1998.

He is a former faculty member of Fudan University in China, where he earned a master's degree in computer science before going on to get a doctorate in the field from Carnegie Mellon University.

Microsoft has apparently been courting Yahoo talent in the wake of its failed bid to buy the firm earlier this year for nearly 47 billion dollars in cash and stock.

Microsoft wanted to merge online resources with Yahoo to better battle Internet king Google in the lucrative online search and advertising arena.

Yahoo search executive Sean Suchter was hired by Microsoft to manage its Silicon Valley Search Technology Center and begins work for the Redmond, Washington, company later this month.