Yahoo investors seek quicker answers from Yang
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Yahoo Inc. chief Jerry Yang was found wanting on Wednesday by investors who said the company needed to devise a plan to combat weaker advertising growth more quickly than in the 100 days promised by management.
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(InfoWorld) - Upcoming products and transitions in leadership buffeted shares of Advanced Micro Devices, Apple, and Yahoo this week. Investors have soured on AMD this year as IntelÂ has advanced its own multicore chip technology. The postponement of volume production of AMD's Barcelona quad-core Opteron server chip to the third quarter has not helped. But AMD got a vote of confidence Thursday when brokerage Stifel Nicolaus raised its rating to "buy" from "neutral." The brokerage said thatÂ bad newsÂ has already done whatever damage it could to company shares. On the positive side, the brokerage noted that the last half of the year includes a traditionally strong selling season and that the chip market has stabilized. In response, AMD shares jumped by $1.12 Thursday, to close at $14.77. Apple shares, meanwhile, jumped $4.59 to close at $125.09 Monday on news of improved features for the much-anticipated all-in-one iPhone mobile device. Apple said that the handset will have eight hours of talk time andÂ six hours of Internet use, andÂ that its screen will be glass rather than plastic. One criticism of the iPod screen is that it is prone to scratching. The iPhone's glass display is expected to be better. The company's share price fell somewhat during the week but is still historically high for the company. Despite great anticipation for the product, due out June 29, and recent surveys showing that consumer interest is high despite the high price (about $500), analysts have issued caveats. "This phone is more closely watched than any other cell phone, ever. That means any glitch will be covered," said frequently quoted Jeff Kagan, in an e-mail. "This is the biggest job ever in the history of the cell phone business." A big transition, though not to a new product, also moved Yahoo shares. On Monday the company announced thatÂ Terry Semel ended his six-year tenureÂ as chief executive officer and that company co-founder Jerry Yang will take over. Semel had been a lightning rod for criticism of the company. Though Yahoo is widely acknowledged to have some of the best services on the Internet and was an early leader in recognizing the importance of bringing Web 2.0 interactive features into its fold, it has been unable to keep up with Google in the most important revenue generator on the Web: search engine advertising. The news of Semel's departure was greeted with enthusiasm. Yahoo shares rose $0.81 to close at $28.12 on the news Monday. But the share price subsequently drifted down, despite getting a temporary boost from rumors that News Corp. would take a share in Yahoo in return for merging the MySpace service with the company. Yang's appointment leaves more questions than answers. It's not clear what new leadership he can bring to the company, which is much bigger and more complex than years ago and is in the middle of various transition efforts. Early results from its new search advertising platform, Panama, are good, but the jury is out on efforts to boost display advertising.
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Investors could be forgiven for  wondering if they had stepped into the wrong conference on  Tuesday -- old media executives talked up digital strategies  even as Internet media leader Yahoo warned of an unforeseen  advertising shortfall.
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Yahoo Inc. on Monday tapped co-founder Jerry Yang to replace Chief Executive Terry Semel, bowing to investor pressure as the Internet media company has failed to keep up with rival Google Inc..
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Some Yahoo insiders worry that Jerry Yang lacks the ability to rally the troops.
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Yahoo has been trying to buy Facebook for a good while now, with the most recent rumored amount being for $1.62 billion. TechCrunch has obtained documents on Yahoo&#8217;s valuation of Facebook, and expected advertising revenue growth over the next 10 years. From TechCrunch: Leaked documents in our possession state that an early offer was $37.5 million for [...]
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Blog: Jerry Yang is Yahoo's new CEO. Is he the right choice for leader?
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Skepticism about Microsoft Corp's   prospects of buying Yahoo Inc  may be waning,  as short sellers appear to have backed away in the last few  days from bets against Yahoo's stock rising.
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Investors are hoping for good financial news from the search engine giant.
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If you search for Yahoo Microsoft, this page is the second hit. I like that of course. It's generating a fair amount of flow, since the combination of Yahoo and Microsoft is a pretty hot topic. Keeping the topic going, I think it's pretty amazing that Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo, but then again, which of all their web efforts has captured our imagination? At least Yahoo has Flickr, and when they try something new, we all try it with them (often with not the greatest results). The rambling continues... If Yahoo is into poison pills, try this one out.  Reserve 5 percent of Yahoo's common stock for blogger options. Put us to work to find new businesses for Yahoo, ones that are relevant to our world. When we find them, reward the bloggers with a significant upside stake in Yahoo's future, not the airy-fairy kind, but real stock that we can trade. Handled properly, it could raise shareholder value by much more than 5 percent. Just the kind of deal they pay you to do, oh Yahoo gods and board members.  Of course it'll never happen. It's an idea like the one I keep proposing for newspapers -- that they hire their public editors from the public, independent bloggers with no journalism experience, with no undue reverence for the institutions so revered by journos. They're going away, just like Yahoo is (sad but true). Now what will rise in their place? Imho, something that's home grown, with the integrity of the people, in our interest. The more they invite the public in, the more clued in they will be when we figure out where we want to go with news on the web. It's why I'm excited about the Obama campaign and why I keep giving to it (I'm up to $400 now). I'm excited because so many other people are excited.  I like his idea about tuition for public service for college students. It's so simple. People want to be involved, they want to use their energy and creativity to solve problems. In the 20th century we were couch potatoes. In the 21st we do it for ourselves.  The first tech company that fully embraces this, not just in the form of User Generated Content (what an insult) but by giving us power (that comes from stock) will rule the world. If Y! had the guts, it won't be long before they're making tender offers to buy out Ballmer.  BTW, I think I understand why Ballmer wants Yahoo! When Yahoo engineers wake up they program stuff like Yahoo Live, which is pretty cool and runs on the web, and while it steals ideas from smaller companies, it adds some pretty cool stuff of its own. When Microsoft engineers wake up they program stuff like Vista, a multi-year, multi-billion dollar waste of money, time and customer goodwill. They can't do another Vista without wrecking the franchise. Now the question is -- where do they go for growth? That's what Yahoo is for.
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Yahoo Inc's  Jerry Yang will  seek on Monday to demonstrate in his first major speech since  taking over as chief executive in June the inroads the company  is making putting Web services on mobile phones.
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Business & money: Online search firm Yahoo, subject to takeover interest from Microsoft, tells of rival offer from News Corp
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The president of a Japanese mobile carrier that owns a stake in Yahoo said Thursday he is in talks with Yahoo chief Jerry Yang about how to respond to Microsoft's takeover bid.
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Yahoo Inc's board of directors is to  meet on Friday to discuss Microsoft Corp's $44.6 billion buyout  offer, the TechCrunch blog said, citing unnamed sources.
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Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Jerry Yang told employees Wednesday that the struggling Internet pioneer is still examining ways to avoid a takeover by rival Microsoft Corp.
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Yahoo Inc said it may take "quite a bit of time" to weigh its strategic options, including keeping the company independent, following Microsoft Corp's $45 billion offer to buy the company.
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Mike Arrington is doing a great job of laying out the options for Yahoo wrt Microsoft's offer to buy them out. He's written two pieces that helped put it together for me. Mike clearly has great sources in the investment banking community and among potential buyers of Yahoo, and is actively talking with them. He's got a business lawyer's mind and, as you know I'm sure, he's spent the last few years immersed in web applications.  Bottom-line: Yahoo's three choices are: 1. Tough it out alone. 2. Sell advertising rights to Google. 3. Accept Microsoft's offer.  Mike argues that option 1 would result in shareholder lawsuits and in the end would get Yahoo nowhere because they'd end up selling to Microsoft eventually. Option 2 would enable them to pay a major cash dividend to their shareholders, making up for the lost windfall coming from Microsoft's offer. Options 2 and 3 have the risk of being rejected by government regulators.  Now, as a member of Yahoo's developer community, and generally a respector of Yahoo (is that a word) -- I say take the deal. I don't think Yahoo has ever had leadership that has been up to navigating the treacherous waters of tech industry economics and politics. At least with the Microsoft acquisition they would get one -- Ray Ozzie. He's a guy you can sit across the table from and plot something out and he can deliver. I've had many good meetings with Yahoo people, but rarely have they resulted in action. From my own selfish point of view, Microsoft owning Yahoo might mean that Ray makes more trips to the Bay Area (figuratively) and when he sits down, we can talk about new open interfaces and developer programs for Yahoo properties. I've read most of the commentary on the Yahoo deal, and the other piece that made an impression was Mark Cuban's. He says that Yahoo should accept the Microsoft deal because it would give them the breathing room they need re Wall Street. He argues that the market has always allowed Microsoft to sink resources into developing markets, and that's exactly what Yahoo needs to become the organization that it has been trying to be. Instead, the market treats Yahoo as a comp to Google, but Yahoo doesn't have the economics of Google, so that's, long-term, a losing battle.  There's one more reason I think Yahoo should sell to Microsoft -- the fatigue of the people. The company has been wobbly too long. If they don't take the Microsoft offer it's going to be a long wobbly decline and the shareholders will be right to be angry. Here's their chance to get out, it's time, so just do it.