yang

Ballmer and Yang: The last words

If you were to put Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in the ring, you would expect the boistrous Ballmer to be left standing. With Microsoft taking its offer to Yahoo home, it's hard to tell who the real winner is in the long run. Microsoft certainly coveted Yahoo. However, if Yahoo falls on its face in coming months, Microsoft could be back...with a lower offer. Consider this a chapter closing in a longer tale, whose ending we don't precisely know.

Full coverage of Microhoo

Post-Microhoo: Winners and losers

Barring a come to Jesus moment by both sides, "Microhoo" is dead and buried. So who won and who lost? Months from now, we'll have a clear idea. In the meantime, here are my back-of-the-envelope picks.

Biggest winners: Steve Ballmer and Microsoft A lot has been made of Microsoft's seeming inability to engineer its way out of a paper bag. Trouble with the conventional wisdom is that it's usually out of date. Prior to Ray Ozzie coming onboard and Microsoft's move to embrace cloud computing in a big way, Yahoo may have been worth … Read more

Steve Ballmer's letter to Jerry Yang

Here is the text of the letter Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent to Yahoo chief Jerry Yang after talks broke down on Saturday.

May 3, 2008

Mr. Jerry Yang CEO and Chief Yahoo Yahoo! Inc. 701 First Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Dear Jerry:

After over three months, we have reached the conclusion of the process regarding a possible combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!.

I first want to convey my personal thanks to you, your management team, and Yahoo!’s Board of Directors for your consideration of our proposal. I appreciate the time and attention all of you have given to … Read more

Yahoo president's salary up, overall pay down

Yahoo President Sue Decker saw her salary, bonus, and incentive play payment increase from $1.35 million in 2006 to $1.76 million in 2007, but factoring in stock and options, her overall compensation declined, the company said in regulatory filing Tuesday.

Decker's stock and stock option compensation, as valued by Yahoo, dropped from $14.6 million in 2006 to $13 million in 2007, the company said.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Jerry Yang, who took over the top executive post from Terry Semel in June, got a $1 salary and no stock or new options. That figure is unchanged … Read more

What Yahoo's board did wrong

Fear is a human emotion. It's part of our survival mechanism--the adrenaline fight or flight response. In ancient times when a caveman felt fear, he ran and hid or readied himself for battle. Those who paid attention to their fear survived; those who didn't, well, let's just say their descendants probably aren't around to read this.

Having courage does not mean ignoring fear. It means facing fear head-on and doing the right thing anyway. At least that's my definition. If you fail to face fear and act appropriately you're not necessarily a coward, but you're not the best you can be either.

The most successful people on the planet are the ones who face the cold, hard truth of reality and act accordingly. They don't surround themselves with "yes men" and they don't view the world through rose-colored glasses.… Read more

Memo to Steve Ballmer for the long flight home

The rumors about Windows Vista apparently are true. People hate it.

Even with a cast of thousands and a sky-high budget, Vista's achieved more notoriety as a punch line for Apple's searing Mac-PC television spoofs than as IT's savior. And now The Wall Street Journal's Ben Worthen has put pencil to paper to correctly note that you've got a "Vista problem."

It's hard to draw a definitive conclusion because of the deferred revenue last year. At the time, Microsoft said that the $1.67 billion came from advance sales of Vista and … Read more

Yahoo sidesteps the big questions

Yahoo reported solid earnings for its first quarter, but by completely sidestepping discussion of the big Microsoft acquisition issues, the company left more unresolved than resolved.

The company had solid revenue growth, expressed cautious optimism about weathering an economic downturn, and modestly beat analysts' profit expectations. Chief Executive Jerry Yang issued lukewarm metaphors: "Our results this quarter demonstrate we are on the right track. We are pursing the right strategy, and it's beginning to bear fruit."

And in after-hours trading, the company's stock was essentially flat.

I'd say "Ho hum," but the stakes … Read more

What Yahoo's Google gambit says about the failure of 'Panama'

So if Yahoo thinks so much of Google's search technology, why did it waste all those millions on its 'Panama' ad system?

All I can say is that Jerry Yang must really pack a pair.

After spending millions to build a Google-like algorithm, the company plans to test Google's AdSense for Search service.

Say what?

"This is only a limited test, and does not necessarily mean that Yahoo will join the AdSense program," the company said.

Sure.

Yahoo can spin this as a experiment on 3 percent of its traffic and thus stand on terra firma … Read more

Does Microsoft really 'undervalue' Yahoo?

In a new round of public letters, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang tussled about whether the software power is offering too much or too little for the Internet company. So who's right?

There's no simple answer here. It's tricky math, especially given overall declines in Internet stocks and the fact that Yahoo's worth is different depending on whether you consider it a standalone company or a part of Microsoft, which said it expects "at least $1 billion in annual synergy" from an acquisition.

But we surveyed a number of analysts--call … Read more