Microsoft executives are looking to the newly created Live Labs group headed by computer scientist Gary William Flake to accelerate the company's online competitive efforts with Google and other online rivals.

The Live Labs group represents a significant change in mentalityfor a company wherekey products often spend years in development. The Live Labs group is expected to conduct research, work with product teams, and build prototypes to launch a variety of Internet programs.

Flake,a 38-year-old computer specialist, was chief scientist at Yahoo! Research, leading a range of advanced projects. Among the items of note for Flake was the "Mindset" search project that presents results based on the intent of a person's Internet search query.

Last week, Flake indicated that one of the fundamental principles behind Microsoft Live Labs was to work quickly to get feedback, providing a much richer and more liquid exchange of opinions and data for the company and others. Flake noted that Microsoft has a fundamental stability based upon its core software businesses that makes risky online moves less dangerous than that of other pure Internet companies.

The hiring of Flake is considered by many techblogs to be a major hiring coup for Microsoft, a company that experienced several high-profile departures of its own a year ago.