On Monday, we asked why — given their particularly dire circumstances and the fact that pretty much everyone agrees that music's future is online — the record labels still couldn't bring themselves to hire technology geeks. And now, one finally has! Yesterday, on April Fools' Day no less, EMI announced that Google's senior director of information systems, Douglas Merrill, will be joining the company as president.

Nobody's sure what, exactly, he'll be doing there, or how EMI managed to lure him away from Google (where they have FREE CEREAL IN THE OFFICE), but since Merrill would definitely be smart enough to know if this were a terrible idea, we're assuming it's probably not. If anybody can figure out how to turn a profit on recorded music these days, we bet it'll end up being this guy.

Google CIO Douglas Merrill Quits Becomes President of EMI [Furrier.org via Valleywag]

Earlier: Why Won't the Music Business Hire Nerds?