Webism Today » yahoo

All Ying and no Yang for Yahoo

David Law — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:48:00 +0000

Once known as ‘Jerry’s guide to the world wide web’, Yahoo has been at the forefront of tech debate and discussion for nearly two decades. Now, co-founder Jerry Yang has announced that he will step down as CEO as soon as a replacement has been named.

The news of Yang’s retirement has been welcomed by Wall Street with shares in the internet company jumping around 12% in early morning trading, to a total tune of $1.83 billion. Obviously Wall Street feels that Yahoo is much better off without the original Yahoo member.

Having only accepted the position of CEO in June 2007, Yang has had a very short career at the helm of Yahoo. During that time he has come under much criticism, mainly for his rejection of the original Microsoft offer and the downward spiral of the company’s shares.

In his blog, however, Yang discusses his reasons for leaving and although he recognises the difficulties over the past few months, he reminds readers of the changes that he has brought to the search engine – as CEO he led the search engine through the re-wiring of its entire network, and the partnerships the company has made with developers and publishers. He also mentions that Yahoo was seen to be the place where users turn for information on the Olympics and elections.

Yang will now step down to Chief Yahoo and focus on “global strategy, product excellence, technology innovation, and working with the Board and our executive team to help Yahoo realize its full potential.”

Naturally, the next wave of speculation will be on whom the new CEO will be and whether or not that person will be ready to do a deal with Microsoft, which analysts believe is the only long-term strategy for Yahoo.

Boohoo for Yahoo

David Law — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 17:05:00 +0000

It’s been another disappointing week for Yahoo. Nobody likes to get rejected, but to get rejected twice in one week is soul shattering.

There’s been a lot of speculation as to whether or not the Google-Yahoo deal would go through, and what affect that would have on the industry. Naturally, many people believed that it would create a monopoly, but it was left in the hands of the department of justice.

Over the last few months the Yahoo share priced has fluctuated dramatically as Yahoo has bounced in and out of negative headlines. Industry experts, reports and shareholders have all had their concerns about the company, and it seemed that Google was the only thing that was going to make them financially viable again. Of course, this would all depend on what the department of justice had to say.

This week Google decided it had had enough of the department’s probing and that it didn’t really need Yahoo anyway, not enough to continue with these investigations. In a moment of shame and desperation, the original internet giant turned to Microsoft who it had turned down several months ago.

Yahoo told reporters that it had really just been playing hard to get. It had originally rejected their offer of $33 per share, but they were “ready to negotiate”. With the share price at bargain rock-bottom price of nearly a third of the original offer, and with the chance to use Yahoo! to boost MSN’s minute market share, it came as a serious surprise when Microsoft turned round and rejected Yahoo.

It seems that even Microsoft have moved on. Only time will tell what is left for internet company Yahoo but with a falling share price, job cuts and merger rejections, things are looking very bleak for Yahoo!