WebProNews

If, in its effort to simplify and streamline, you were expecting Yahoo to shut down some overseas operations, you may still be right.  Serious cuts shouldn't take place in India, however - Yahoo is creating a new research lab in this country.

Dr. Rajeev Rastogi

Some press release-ese hinted at the lab's purpose.  "Yahoo! Labs - Bangalore will be a center of excellence for next generation search and advertising technologies, focused on making the Web more relevant and simple for users and advertisers."

Also, in reference to its scope (and to Dr. Rajeev Rastogi, the lab's head), "Rastogi was appointed to assemble a world-class team of scientists and engineers to focus on new approaches to information extraction and machine learning, multimedia and query processing."

So, while square footage and personnel matters haven't been announced, we appear to be looking at something huge that will concentrate on Yahoo's core businesses.  Many spectators would agree that this is exactly the sort of thing Yahoo needs.

We look forward to seeing what happens.  There is, of course, no official word on how a Microsoft acquisition might affect the lab.