Microsoft Searches for Some Yahoos

Can't buy the company? Can't buy the search technology? Well, how about buying the talent? Wednesday Microsoft placed a full-page ad for "search jobs" in (gasp!) an honest-to-goodness hard copy paper, The San Jose Mercury-News. Despite the ubiquity of the San Francisco Chronicle, for Silicon Valley, the Merc is the paper.

Microsoft wants to make sure any Silicon Valley search programmers know that it has search jobs in the Valley. Now which company might it be looking at for talent? The first line of the ad says:

"There are now very few companies that remain truly committed to defining the future of search and online advertising. Microsoft is one of them."

Methinks they would have been better served using a site ad instead of a newspaper ad, but hey, old-school.

The ad goes on to say that Microsoft is a company with the:

"resources, engineering expertise, R&D, partnerships and competitive spirit to make it happen."

While it's possible they could be targeting others besides Yang's Yahoos, it would make sense if they were targeting Yahoo employees. After all, Glassdoor seems to indicate morale isn't so great at Yahoo!

You can see the ad below; click to enlarge.