Meet Dr. Qi Lu (see photo, right). I have met him before, but it was at a backyard barbecue, and I didn’t want to grill the man about the future of search and the Web in that setting. But this is different.
Lu, the president of Microsoft’s online services division (his first name is pronounced “chee”), will be in Boston on May 11, and he’s stopping by the company outpost in Kendall Square to give a talk on Microsoft’s vision for the future of the Web and search. He’ll also sit down for a brief Q&A with yours truly, and we’ll take questions from the audience.
It’s all happening at Microsoft New England Research and Development Center (NERD), starting at 6:15 pm (doors open at 5:30) on the 11th. The event is free, and you can register here.
Lu is the man who was brought in to revitalize Microsoft’s Internet efforts in late 2008. Among his many duties on the senior leadership team, he oversees the company’s digital advertising efforts across search (Bing), portals (MSN), mobile, and other platforms. He has some pretty deep ideas on where search and Web technologies are headed—and where the real business opportunities are. Before coming to Microsoft, Lu spent 10 years as a senior exec with Yahoo, and also worked as a research staff member at IBM.
I’ve been wanting to ask him about how Bing is doing against Google, and what Microsoft’s strategy is in emerging areas like location-based advertising, video search and ads, local deals, and social media. (And also which innovative areas startups and entrepreneurs should be looking at.)
So bring all your questions too—and we hope to see you on May 11.
