Gary Flake, formerly head of research and development at Yahoo!, was recently hired away by search rival MSN. An MSN spokesperson said Flake "will be responsible for bridging the innovation happening
between MSR [Microsoft Research] and MSN and for setting the technology vision and future direction of the MSN portal, Web search, desktop search and monetization engine." He will take up the newly
created position of MSN Distinguished Engineer.
--Shankar Gupta
