The steady flow of executives leaving Sunnyvale for Redmond may have started up once again. Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) said Monday that it had hired Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) executive Kevin Timmons (pictured) to head up its data center services organization. Timmons was the vice president of operations at Yahoo, where he led the build-out of the company’s data centers and infrastructure. He had previously served as director of operations at GeoCities, which Yahoo announced it would shut down in April.

Timmons is the second data center operations executive to recently leave Yahoo for Microsoft. Earlier this year, Microsoft hired away Dayne Sampson, Yahoo’s former vice president of operations for search and advertising. With Timmons, at least six Yahoo executives will have left for Microsoft since December—although there appeared to be a lull recently with no executive departing since late March. A magnet for Yahoo employees at Microsoft is Qi Lu, the new president of the company’s online services division, who also hails from Yahoo. The overlap between executives at the two firms would likely help smooth over the transition in any Yahoo-Microsoft deal—if it ever ends up taking place.

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