Microsoft to rope in 400 Yahoo pros to boost collaboration

BANGALORE: Microsoft will be offering positions to 400 of Yahoo’s software professionals — most working on search technology — to boost the search-domain collaboration the two technology giants announced sometime back. 200 of these people will be from Yahoo’s 2,000-strong Bangalore research centre, a key Yahoo executive told ET. Microsoft is likely to make an announcement within this week.

“200 of our best-of-breed talent, involved in search infrastructure technology, will be offered options with Microsoft. This will happen over the next one year and shows the maturity level of our local R&D centre,” Yahoo India R&D’s chief Shouvick Mukherjee said. He clarified that these people will given an option to join MS and they wouldn’t be under a compulsion to switch.

The move is happening because Yahoo, under the partnership plan, is moving out of search infrastructure, which involves website indexation and mining of user-generated data, and focusing more on display advertising, multimedia search and cloud computing. The other 200 people will be from different Yahoo locations.



Yahoo’s Bangalore R&D centre is the largest in terms of number of people. While Mr Mukherjee didn’t spell out the exact number working on search technologies, sources said all of Yahoo’s multimedia search happens out of India, while a lot of search advertising mechanism gets developed here.

“We are offering Microsoft this expertise because Yahoo already has a lot of experience and data in search infrastructure, which is being transferred. But, Yahoo and Microsoft will compete at all product levels, including those in search,” he added.

The research centre is stepping up its local hiring and plans to add 300 over the April-May-June quarter, which compares well with the 500 hired during the entire calendar last year.