To put it mildly, 2008 was not a good year for Yahoo. The first quarter was consumed by the on-again, off-again romance with Microsoft. Q2 was when they declared their independence. In Q3, the numbers proved that to be a mistake and kicked off the Jerry watch. Q4 began a long, drawn-out search for a new CEO.
Here we are in 2009 and Yahoo has announced their new CEO, veteran technology leader Carol Bartz. I think Bartz is a solid, if unspectacular choice. She's a grownup (as my old boss used to say) and clearly has a proven track record. While Jerry Yang seemed too much in love with the company he'd created to make difficult decisions, Bartz shouldn't have any problems doing so. Besides her 15 years leading Autodesk, Bartz has sat on numerous boards, including Cisco, Intel and NetApp. Were she running the show when Microsoft came calling last year, I've little doubt that the process would have been smooth and professional (well, as professional as dealings with Steve Ballmer could go).
With Bartz running the Company and Sue Decker leaving, the search deal with Microsoft should be back on, reports Kara Swisher. According to Kara, Microsoft has a proposal ready to be presented to the Yahoo board, with an announcement possible by month-end. That deal seems like a no-brainer right now.
Henry Blodget worries that Bartz has no consumer Internet experience, fearing that an outsider might not fully comprehend that the search business is lost and that improving their offering is not a viable option.
Jon Ogg at 24/7 Wall Street likes the choice of Bartz, noting that she is an operator and orchestrator alike, but notes that with real growth unlikely in the current economy, Wall Street will need to decide on new metrics to measure Yahoo's success.
In a related post, Doug McIntyre agrees that Yahoo should kill its search offering, but sees potential opportunities in the nascent mobile search market, in the U.S., Europe and Asia. He also notes that Yahoo's core display advertising business is still fairly immature and there remain tremendous opportunities to gain on traditional media.
So, will Carol Bartz be able to revitalize Yahoo? It's a tough challenge, but doesn't have the structural challenges that turning around GM or Citigroup might. Let's give her some time to come forward with a plan and let's hope she can do it. Yahoo remains a top notch Internet brand and there are a lot of reasons to hope they succeed.
