“We want to give customers an engaging user experience”

As senior vice president, James Carroll leads Yahoo!'s Consumer & Global Platforms. James also manages Yahoo!'s global R&D centers in China, India, Taiwan and the Middle East. He is a 20-year Industry veteran and has worked in a variety of technical and management positions during his career. James has extensive experience and knowledge in software development and international operations, having led organizations at Yahoo!, Microsoft, MSN and Claris Corporation, a software subsidiary of Apple. He is considered a leader in global technology development and operations. In an interview to Dataquest some time back, James Carroll shares some of the key initiatives Yahoo is pursuing. Excerpts:

Can you talk about the restructuring and how Yahoo" organized across business lines?

We have two main groups- consumer group and the technology group. The former takes care of the consumer business and the later gives Yahoo the technology depth to address the demands of the consumers. For instance developing core platforms for the consumers is one main agenda for the technology group and we are constantly innovating. The purpose of the restructuring across groups we believe will give the much needed focus and clarity and that will manifest in engaging user experience that form the crux of the whole restructuring.

Can you talk more about the core platforms?

The recent restructuring at Yahoo is aimed at putting customers first - every step henceforth is all about giving consumers great experiences and leveraging Yahoo's core assets for their advertising partners. We hope to achieve this through Core Platforms; the idea is to bring together engineering, technology, and science teams in three platform areas - personalization and targeting platforms, advertising and data platforms, and consumer and global platforms to improve overall consumer experiences and the monetization of those experiences. Platforms will support Yahoo!'s massive scale, drive the deepest personalization, and boost speed to market.

Can you talk about some innovations like Axis?

Axis gives people instant answers and visual previews so they can continuously discover and explore content without interruption. Axis' agile design keeps people moving forward rather than constantly returning to a page of endless blue links. Once on a search results site, Axis also lets people simply swipe or click to the next result. Axis integrates with the users' desktop browser and automatically connects the users' online experiences across multiple devices.

On Yahoo! India R&D

 

The India R&D center is the 2nd largest for Yahoo globally. The center involves in developing state of the art world class customer centric products and works on innovative new technologies. In the last 10 years the center has matured to become a customer-centric innovation hub, delivering high-impact products and platforms on a global scale. Idea submissions for patent review at the center have seen an average rise of 40% in last 3 years. The center has delivered more than 20 products across media, technology and platform portfolios.