Two former members of the Google Maps team have found Microsoft and joined the Redmond company as corporate vice president of its maps and local team, part of its webxt group.
Nicholas Lee, Google’s chief engineer, worked for Google Maps nearly 17 years ago. In an internal memo viewed by geekwire, he was appointed the new leader of Microsoft maps and the local team.
Russell dicker also joined Microsoft. According to his LinkedIn profile, he served as senior product director of Google Maps routing + navigation, Google automotive services, transportation and multimodal transport.
Microsoft declined to respond to our inquiries about new employees.
Webxt group is led by Mikhail parakhin, President of Microsoft Web experience, including Bing search engine, Microsoft News, maps, the company’s advertising platform and edge web browser.
Microsoft released more than $3 billion in search and News advertising revenue in the third quarter of December, up 32% year-on-year, excluding traffic acquisition costs.