BEIJING - Kaifu Lee,
the subject of an ongoing legal brawl between
Microsoft and Google, has taken up his post as
Google's head in China, with the aim of recruiting
50 college graduates this year.
Lee,
former vice-president with the US software giant
Microsoft, said in Beijing: "We have a lot of
expectations for our Chinese operations and the
Chinese market." Speaking after he received
permission to work for the
search engine in China, he said that Google's
development center in China would be established
very soon.
Google has been pondering
whether to put the center in Beijing and Shanghai.
Lee said the company would make a decision soon.
It already has a representative office in Shanghai
and has signed deals with several advertising
agents, preparing for the formal launch of its
business in China. The search giant plans to build
a world-class center in China, which will not only
work on the localization of its products and
services, but also on cutting-edge technologies
for its global operations.
The top Chinese
scientist at Google said his job is to hire at
least 50 college graduates by the end of this
year, as the job-hunting season for graduate
students starts this month. "We are here not to
steal talent from other companies, but to train
local people," he said. Lee, who enjoys a high
reputation among Chinese students for his success
in companies including Microsoft and Apple,
promised he would lead the 50 new students
personally and make them into top-class computer
scientists. He added that since the graduates can
only begin work after their graduation in the
middle of next year, his firm will also try to
recruit engineers from within the industry.
Microsoft Research Asia, which was founded
by Lee in 1998 in Beijing, also said yesterday it
would aim to recruit 100 to 150 graduates this
year.
Although the Chinese scientist
received permission to work for Google from a
local US court, he was not allowed to work on any
projects similar to ones he had worked on at
Microsoft. The world's largest software firm sued
Lee and Google for the breach of a "non-compete"
agreement between Microsoft and Lee in July and
demanded the court stop Lee from working at Google
for one year following his departure from
Microsoft. Such agreements, which are common in
the IT industry, require employees of a firm to
pledge that they will not work for that firm's
competitors if they later choose to leave.
The court decision gave Lee the green
light to work at Google, but it still needs to
rule in January on what specific jobs Lee can work
on at Google, so currently his main job is to find
employees for his new firm in China.
