Yusuf Mehdi, who reportedly is the " longest-running executive in Microsoft’s Online Services Division," (which houses Bing) is heading over to the company's Xbox division. Reasons for the shift aren't entirely clear. But Mehdi is a key executive for "OSD" and was instrumental in the creation and successful launch of Bing. According to the internal memo obtained by Geekwire, Mehdi and his tenure are described as follows: Yusuf has been involved with leading Microsoft Online Services businesses longer than anyone else on the OSD LT, and has been a pivotal leader at critical milestones of [...]

Related Topics: Ask: Video | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Employees

Rapleaf published some interesting data comparing Google employees to Microsoft employees. TechCrunch published the report, which we will embed below as well. The study was made up of matching 6,000 Google employees and 16,000 Microsoft employees email addresses with grocery purchase behavior in partnership with a loyalty card aggregator. They determined a lot of interesting differences between Googlers and Microsoft employees. Googlers are more likely to buy bacon, ice cream, fresh fruits and vegetables, Mountain Dew and Doritos Microsoft employees are more likely to buy vitamins, b [...]

Related Topics: Google: Employees | Microsoft: Employees

ReadWrite/Web reports Microsoft's Principal Scientist of Bing has left to join the Twitter team. Alek Kołcz, formerly a Scientist at Microsoft Live Labs, a co-chair at CIKM and a System Architect at AOL is now at Twitter. The Twitter employee page has Alek's Twitter avatar and @zorbageek linked to at the bottom. There has not been any official confirmation or announcement from Twitter or Bing outside of this employee page update. ReadWrite/Web said: Kołcz is an info-science heavy, having published numerous research articles in publications like The Journal of Supercomputing, Ne [...]

Related Topics: Microsoft: Employees

The Seattle Times Newspaper published an interview with Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer. The interview covered many topics but I wanted to highlight the search specific topics. Ballmer in the interview said, "They're [Google] starting to look at the stuff we're doing and copying it back. What is it? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." He outright says Google is copying them. Of course, many would agree. I also found Ballmer's comments on what Bing does better than Google. Ballmer said, "our maps are better, our images our better, our picture is different." In response to [...]

Related Topics: Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Business Issues | Microsoft: Employees | Top News

Both current Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and former CEO Bill Gates have recently spoken out critically about Google's stance on doing business in China. (See my previous posts, Ballmer Critical Of Google’s China Decision and Like Ballmer, Bill Gates Dings Google On China.) Now, Ballmer is putting his thoughts in writing ... well, electronic writing ... via a post on Microsoft's new blog. Says Ballmer: Engagement in China and around the world is very important to us, in part because we believe it accelerates access to 21st century technology and services and helps provide the widest po [...]

Related Topics: Google: Critics | Google: Outside US | Legal: Censorship | Microsoft: Employees | Microsoft: Outside US