Yahoo! India R&D will continue to be a critical element in Yahoo! Inc.’s global plans and will grow in the coming days, Pranesh Anthapur, vice president and chief operating officer sought to stress on Tuesday. In fact the research unit of the Web technologies giant will soon add a new 1200 seat facility in the city, he added.

Yahoo India R&D has 120 vacancies, a significant number of them at senior levels, which it is seeking to fill up in due course, he said responding to a report in these columns on Monday on the impact of a global restructuring by Yahoo last week.

“We will continue to hire but we intend to focus on quality rather than just filling positions,” he said adding the R&D outfit would also roll out more new products this year. However, he refused to elaborate on the number and kind of products to be rolled out.  Last year the unit had launched 11 India-specific products that were also used in some other markets.

“We are not slowing anything down as our user base is growing,” he said adding Yahoo India R&D would also provide engineering and product support to markets like— East Europe, Latin America and India amongst others. As reported by DNA Money on Monday apprehension has been strong within the Yahoo senior echelons in India, that post restructuring, the role of Yahoo India R&D, which is the biggest outside the US, would diminish and the number of projects initiated by it would be would also reduce.

Sobia Khan/ DNA-Daily News & Analysis Source: 3D Syndication