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Google wins over top Microsoft engineer

Google Inc hired a prominent Microsoft Corp engineer who was one of the six original members of the team that created the Windows NT operating system, as the company courts talent to compete with Microsoft and Yahoo Inc.

Mark Lucovsky said on his Web log that he spent 16 years at Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, where he was an architect of the Windows NT and 2000 operating systems that run personal and server computers. Steve Langdon, a spokesman for Mountain View, California-based Google, confirmed in an interview last Friday that the company hired Lucovsky.

Google, the most-used Internet search engine, is racing to hire leading computer programmers to build new products and services to compete with No. 2 Yahoo and No. 3 Microsoft's MSN.

Google has said it's having difficulty finding qualified applicants, even though it offers perks such as free lunches and on-site massages.

"Pulling someone like that out of Microsoft is incredibly difficult," said Rob Enderle, an analyst at Enderle Group, a San Jose, California-based market researcher. "Top talent not only provides you with a better product but a visible pedigree to get investors excited about your company."

Google has used unconventional methods to attract computer engineers. The company in July unveiled a recruiting billboard on US Highway 101, the main freeway that connects the company's headquarters in Mountain View with San Francisco, that posed a math problem. Drivers able to solve the problem were directed to a recruiting page on Google's Web site.

"We're under-investing in the business because of the limitations of hiring," Google co-founder Sergey Brin said at the company's first analyst conference on Feb. 9. "We are unquestionably not getting the quantity" of qualified applicants that the company seeks, he said.

Langdon declined to say when Lucovsky joined Google or to elaborate on his job responsibilities. Microsoft spokeswoman Tami Begasse said Lucovsky left the company in November.

"Google is the place to be," said Jeffrey Ullman, a former professor of computer science at Stanford University who was Brin's academic adviser in graduate school. "They are confronting the most exciting issues of the day."
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