Although it’s unlikely that anyone’s printing up new business cards just yet, it looks like Microsoft and Yahoo have decided how to deal with the post-partnership personnel situation in at least one country.  According to a Yahoo exec, about 200 of Yahoo’s engineers in India will switch companies.

Shouvick Mukherjee, who lays claim to the title "VP & CEO Yahoo India R&D," explained to Chiranjoy Sen, "Two hundred of our best-of-breed talent involved in search infrastructure technology will be offered options with Microsoft."

As for the timing of this move, Mukherjee then continued, "This will happen over the next one year . . ."

It’s a good sign that things are being planned out so far in advance.  As we saw during the recession, sudden announcements regarding workforces can hurt morale and make for bad PR; this approach to transferring employees should be much better for all involved.  It also signals that Microsoft and Yahoo know exactly what they want to do in technical terms.

No one’s supposed to interpret this move as a white flag, though.  Mukherjee said, "Yahoo and Microsoft will compete at all product levels, including those in search."