Redmond, Washington — Redmond software maker’s relentless effort to acquire the Sunnyvales’ purple company Yahoo to date remains a distant dream – but that does not deter Microsoft in poaching its creamy talents. Microsoft has confirmed that it has nabbed two more executives away from Yahoo, continuing a trend in migration from Sunnyvale, Calif., to Redmond.
He becomes the fresh in line with an increasing number of creamy talents who have gone to Microsoft from Yahoo since the Redmond company failed in its bid to buy Yahoo outright, and shifted into an apparent strategy of acquiring it one person at a time.
In his new position, Timmons will head a data center services team, Microsoft infrastructure services general manager Arne Josefsberg wrote in a blog posting.
And also according to Todd Bishop, “Microsoft said that it has also hired Yongdong Wang, the former Yahoo vice president of international search, into an unspecified position reporting to Harry Shum, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for search product development.” Wang will work under Harry Shum, Microsoft’s corporate VP for search product development. Surely, these appointees represents a pretty impressive catch.
But the announcement does not ends there, the Redmond Vole has something more up its sleeve… In fact, Timmons and Wang are not the only Yahoo veteran picking up their Microsoft blue badge. Microsoft also said that it has made another big catch – the software company confirmed that it recently hired Knut Risvik, a former Google engineering director, as a partner architect focusing on Microsoft’s search platform and infrastructure.
And in fact, before joining Google, Risvik spent about two years as a chief architect at Yahoo, having joined the Sunnyvale, Calif., company as part of its acquisition of Overture Services.
Indeed, these pieces of news come on the heels of Microsoft’s recent announcement that is quite intent on catching up with (and presumably, surpassing) its rivals in the search industry. Hiring competing talent seems like a simple way to do it, too.
The hiring of Wang and Risvik was first reported by Todd Bishop at TechFlash.