A Conversation with Qi Lu

As president of Microsoft’s Online Services Division (OSD), Dr. Qi Lu leads the company’s search and online advertising efforts and also oversees all of its online information and communications services. Dr. Lu oversees the OSD Research & Development team which has responsibility for the evolution of Microsoft’s search, portal and advertising services; the Online Audience Business Group; and the Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Business Group. Dr. Lu reports to Microsoft chief executive officer Steve Ballmer.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Dr. Lu spent 10 years as a Yahoo! senior executive. His roles included serving as the executive vice president of engineering for the company’s Search and Advertising Technology Group where he oversaw the development of Yahoo!’s Web search and monetization platforms and vice president of engineering responsible for the technology development of Yahoo!’s search, e-commerce and local listings of businesses and products.

Before joining Yahoo!, Dr. Lu worked as a research staff member at IBM’s Almaden Research Center and Carnegie Mellon University and was a faculty member at Fudan University in China. He received his bachelor of science and master of science in computer science from Fudan University and his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Lu holds 20 U.S. patents.

Tim O’Reilly is the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. O’Reilly Media also hosts conferences on technology topics, including the O’Reilly Open Source Convention, the Web 2.0 Summit, and the Gov 2.0 Summit. Tim’s blog, the O’Reilly Radar “watches the alpha geeks” to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. Tim is on the boards of CollabNet and Safari Books Online, and is a partner in O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.

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