Microsoft Corp today said around 400 Yahoo! employees, working on online search technology, may join its development team.
The move, a part of the 10-year global deal between Microsoft and Yahoo!, will see the Redmond-based software major expanding its activities in India by adding nearly 200 Yahoo! engineers to its new R&D (research & development) centre in Bangalore. Microsoft commenced its R&D activities in India from Hyderabad in 1998.
The other 200 Yahoo! employees will be based in Silicon Valley. The transition, purely on a voluntary basis, is expected to be completed by September. All the employees will be on Microsoft’s payroll. Microsoft is confident the process will be smooth.
“Our partnership with Yahoo! has laid a strong foundation to enable us to throw up a strong challenge to Google. Now, our search engine (Bing) is as relevant as Google, but we have fewer advertisements,” Satya Nadella, senior vice-president, R&D, online service division (OSD) at Microsoft, said.
Meanwhile, as part of the global deal, Microsoft will have full access to Yahoo!’s search engine to be used in Bing. The company is not required to pay up front cash to Yahoo!, even though there will be a revenue-sharing agreement between the two.
