microsoft-yahoo merger

Online marketers unhappy with Microhoo saga outcome

SAN FRANCISCO--As you might expect, search engine marketers aren't crazy about how the Google-Yahoo-Microsoft power struggle has played out.

It's not that they disapprove of Yahoo remaining independent of Microsoft. It's just that Google's search market share, at nearly 70 percent in June, has only grown stronger during its rivals' kerfuffle. Online marketers here Wednesday at the RBC Capital conference said Google's dominance limits their options to deliver on search ad campaigns.

"We always have a need for multiple sources of quality traffic and we don't see that need going away as Google'… Read more

Disapproval eases for Yahoo board in this year's vote

Update at 3:08 p.m. PDT, with Carl Icahn's appointment to the board and closing stock price.

The results are in on the re-election of Yahoo's directors, and the damage is not as bad as last year. No one received more than a 22.1 percent withhold vote, compared with a substantially higher 34 percent last year, according to the company.

Shareholders withhold votes to re-elect directors as a means to send a message of investor dissatisfaction to a company and its board.

Here's how each director stacked up on their re-election:

Roy Bostock, chairman, a … Read more

Yahoo shareholders meeting a case of deja vu?

Update 7:59 a.m. PDT: Added link to Carl Icahn's blog about his thoughts on the Yahoo shareholder meeting.

Believe in deja vu? Yahoo shareholders may when they file into the company's annual shareholders meeting on Friday.

Last year, an angry mob of investors took Yahoo CEO Terry Semel to task at the annual shareholders meeting, citing the company's lackluster performance and lucrative compensation awards. A week later, Semel resigned from his executive post, passing the baton to company co-founder Jerry Yang.

Fast-forward a year later and the situation is expected to be markedly similar. When … Read more

As Juniper CEO, Kevin Johnson to get $5 million signing bonus

The jump to Juniper Networks as CEO seems almost a no-brainer for Microsoft executive Kevin Johnson.

Johnson will not only be top dog at the networking company when he arrives September 8, but he's landing a $5 million signing bonus that'll be doled out over three years and an annual base salary of $800,000, according to Juniper's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

Johnson, who's leaving his post as Microsoft's online and Windows chief, will also land two stock option grants that total 1.6 million shares vesting over four years, … Read more

T. Boone Pickens dumps Yahoo stake

Yahoo dipped below $20 a share Tuesday morning, following a report in the San Francisco Chronicle that T. Boone Pickens dumped his entire stake of 10 million shares.

Shares of the Internet pioneer fell as low as $19.71 in morning trading, coming within a breath of the $19.18 that the stock closed at on the day before Microsoft announced its unsolicited buyout bid of $31 a share. Microsoft later bumped it up to $33 a share, which was rejected.

Pickens jumped into the stock in May, following an announcement by investor activist Carl Icahn that he would wage … Read more

Microsoft's online strategy: Trust us

REDMOND, Wash.--Microsoft went into more detail Thursday about its online spending plans, but offered few new details on just how it plans to catch Google.

In his remarks to financial analysts, CEO Steve Ballmer acknowledged that, in the search business, the company faces the challenge of needing to boost the number of search queries, attract revenue per share and boost revenue. While Yahoo would have offered a clear way around that Catch-22 by boosting Microsoft's advertiser base and query volume, Ballmer insisted he had other ideas besides a deal with the Silicon Vallery Internet company,

"There are … Read more

Ballmer: No current talks with Yahoo

REDMOND, Wash.--CEO Steve Ballmer said Thursday that its on-again, off-again talks with Yahoo are firmly in the "off-again" phase.

The two sides have talked on and off, he said, first about a purchase and then about a search deal.

"Now we aren't (talking) and that's where things are," Ballmer said, speaking at Microsoft's financial analyst meeting here. "There is nothing under discussion between the two of us."

Ballmer's comments followed an earlier discussion of the continued investment (losses) that Microsoft expects as it spends money in its online business. … Read more

RiskMetrics recommends re-election of current Yahoo board

Updated at 2:16 p.m. PDT with comments from RiskMetrics' Patrick McGurn and Yahoo shareholder activist Eric Jackson.

Yahoo's current board of directors received an endorsement Thursday, when influential advisory service RiskMetrics Group recommended to its institutional investor clients to vote for all of Yahoo's directors at the upcoming annual shareholders meeting.

That recommendation runs counter to one issued the day before by Glass Lewis & Co., another institutional investor advisory service that makes recommendations to pension funds, mutual funds and asset management companies on how to vote on issues contained within companies' proxies. Glass Lewis, as … Read more

Yahoo president 'looking forward' to meeting Icahn

Yahoo President Sue Decker has taken the high road. In a CNBC interview that aired Wednesday, she said she looks forward to meeting investor activist Carl Icahn when he joins the company's board and would "love to get his advice."

Icahn, who reached a settlement with Yahoo earlier in the week, agreed to halt his proxy fight in exchange for being appointed to the board after the company's August 1 shareholders meeting. Yahoo also agreed to expand its board to 11 members and select two directors from a list that Icahn provided.

In the past two … Read more