Yahoo touts PortalBuilder upgrade, new customers

Internet stalwart Yahoo on Tuesday introduced an upgrade of its corporate portal software and trumpeted new customer wins, including such corporate heavyweights as McDonald's and Bayer.

The news comes at a time when the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company is on the hunt for new avenues of revenue.

The latest upgrade to Yahoo PortalBuilder software includes new tools that let companies manage personalized information and handle the delivery of content and applications. Version 2.0 also offers access to the portal via wireless devices.

Yahoo, which will charge listing fees for auctions beginning Wednesday, has recently seen its shares slammed because of concerns that an overall slowdown of Web advertising will hurt the company's revenue growth. Advertising accounts for about 90 percent of Yahoo's revenue.

Like other Internet companies, Yahoo has considered charging fees for certain services to help reduce its dependence on ad sales. To lessen its reliance on online ad revenue, Yahoo executives have said they plan to introduce new fee-based services, such as online music, though they say they will not charge for any services that currently are free.

Yahoo on Tuesday also said it has added several new partners to help extend the sales channel for its corporate portal software, signing agreements with software maker Novell, application service provider Corio and others.

Yahoo, which currently has 18 customers licensing PortalBuilder, also said it added McDonald's, Seagate Technology and Bayer to its roster of clients. McDonald's is using the portal software to help improve internal communications among its employees and partners, the company said.