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Yahoo R&D Chief Joins MSN Search

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the where-do-you-want-to-work-today? dept.

sriram_2001 writes "In a major hiring coup, the MSN Search blog announced that Yahoo's head of Research and Development, Dr.Gary William Flake has now joined MSN. According to Oshoma Momoh, General Manager, MSN Search, Dr.Flake will be 'responsible for bridging the innovation happening between Microsoft Research and MSN and for setting the technology vision and future direction of the MSN portal, web search, desktop search and monetization engine.' Dr.Flake is also the first person to be directly hired as a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer, an elite group that has Dave Cutler and Anders Hejlsberg among other luminaries"

4 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Yahoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Google are quite adept at marketing and acquiring firms with complementary offerings, but according to this analysis, Yahoo actually have a larger database of web pages than Google (who apparently inflate hit counts to make their database look larger than it is).

    I still use Google as my primary search engine, but the more I read about the company, the less I like it. If Yahoo had a Usenet database, I'd probably switch to it.

  2. Microsoft's way... by BJZQ8 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Microsoft's recent way seems to be hiring what they consider "key" people from other, successful companies, hoping to transplant that success. But as one poster said, they're taking one very large black marker, and leaving the dozens of colored pencils that can produce a beautiful picture. Yahoo's search leaves much to be desired anyway; they should be hiring swaths of Google employees if they are serious.

    1. Re:Microsoft's way... by ddrichardson · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Of course the cynical reader may view "hoping to transplant that success" as "not fussed if the transplant is successful - as long as the organ is removed from the competition".

      --
      A thistle is a fat salad for an ass's mouth...
  3. More on Yahoo! chief! scientist! by value_added · · Score: 2, Interesting
    From a Register article on the subject:

    In stark contrast to some of his peers, Flake recently reminded us that "data is not information; information is not knowledge; knowledge is not wisdom." Asked by Gary Price if the internet would replace librarians, he replied,

    "Search engines can give you more data than you'll ever need, and a lot of valuable information as well, but they aren't even in the running when it comes to knowledge and wisdom."

    Zen and the Art of Search, it seems.