Ex-Microsoftie jumps to Yahoo

FAILING AD BROKER Yahoo has announced that it will install Microsoft's former corporate vice president of Windows Live, Blake Irving as its chief product officer.

Irving spent 15 years at the Vole working on making Windows Live scale with users' demands. According to Microsoft, Irvine was in charge of datacenter and technical operations. His list of credits also includes being on the marketing team for Internet Explorer and the Windows operating systems. Quite how much work Internet Exploder's marketing department needed to do in the late 90s once the user had purchased the firm's operating system is up for debate.

Yahoo was keen to play up Irving's past, saying that he brought "genuine large scale Internet expertise from a mature company known for world-class technology". We presume the firm being referred to is Microsoft, however Irving also did some time with Xerox, Compaq and Oki.

As chief product officer at Yahoo, Irving will be charged with building "vision, strategy, design and development" of the firm's consumer and advertising offerings. He will report to the "Chief Yahoo" Carol Bartz.

Irving faces a tough task, having not only to fight against Google but deal with the intricacies of Yahoo's 'merger' with the Vole. Wish him luck, we think he'll need it. µ