Apple Hires Yahoo's Data Center Man, Siri Co-Founder Departs

Scott Noteboom

Scott Noteboom, the man who saw Yahoo’s Data Center grow 10x under his tenure has joined Apple. As Apple pushes hard in Google’s domain and gets into Cloud offerings, Noteboom’s experience should benefit them. Noteboom now lists his designation as ‘Distinguished Gentleman at Apple’, which ends with a šŸ™‚ (smiley). Certainly he is happy at his new role.

Apple has had their share of hiccups in building cloud services. MobileMe was a public failure during launch and never really inspired. At the same time, Google has made a mobile OS and has managed to get world class hardware partners using it and shipping out millions of Android devices. Apple’s latest push towards the cloud iCloud isn’t the best we have seen, but the most aggressive and polished (from Apple) till date. Apple certainly has grand plans to take Siri and iCloud to new heights and as Noteboom mentions on his likedIN profile… “Doing my part in changing the world.”

As Noteboom’s Apple affiliation becomes public, another HR news comes in, this time of departure. DagĀ Kittlaus, the man leading voice at Apple has moved on. This comes just days after Apple shipped Siri as a major features in its 5th generation iPhone the 4S. Dag reached Apple in 2010 when Apple bought Siri for a rumored $200 million amount. Apple now has years of research for use in its vast line of products and the iPhone 4S is theĀ beginning. How fast and how wide can Apple take Siri (read: International), is yet to be seen.

AllthingsD reports that Kittlaus’ departure was planned andĀ amicable. Questions about Siri’s future and Apple’s performance in Voice would be raised after his departure, but we guess they have enough of Siri’s research and people to take it forward in a healthy shape.