eBay Research Labs Has Big Ambitions
Microsoft has had a research division since the early 1990s. Google’s programming staff spends 20 percent of its time on R&D. Even Yahoo has a growing research division (see “Yahoo Ramps Up Research”). So why not eBay?In fact, the online auction giant has a research outfit, although it’s little more than a year old. Known as eBay Research Labs, it began as a corps of programmers called the Advanced Technology Group.For its tender age, the division has outsized ambitions. Its senior director, Eric Billingsley, a former nuclear engineer and veteran of search industry pioneer AltaVista, believes eBay will become a “common platform” for all kinds of online commerce, allowing people to build on and profit from customized tools that tap into eBay’s massive inventory and customer-service infrastructure.
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