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Microsoft chief strategy officer leaves the door open for Yahoo
Microsoft's chief strategy officer Craig Munde told reporters yesterday that the Yahoo merger is off for good — he "assumed", before putting the ball back in Yahoo's court:The market may wish that the Yahoo deal may come back together, but Microsoft at least at this point assumes it's over. Yahoo could always come back again and say please buy us for $33 (a share) and I'm sure we might reconsider it but we're not assuming that's going to happen
Microsoft dashes hostile Yahoo takeover hopes
In a letter from software giant Microsoft's lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell to proxy board members, the company rescinded the agreements it had struck in case of a hostile take-over bid for Web search pioneer Yahoo. But hey, with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang now begging for deal with tail tucked and head down, the companies may still agree to a friendly take-over bid. [WSJ]
In a letter from software giant Microsoft's lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell to proxy board members, the company rescinded the agreements it had struck in case of a hostile take-over bid for Web search pioneer Yahoo. But hey, with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang now begging for deal with tail tucked and head down, the companies may still agree to a friendly take-over bid. [WSJ]
cubicle culture
We've toured the top 10 workspaces in tech. Now, we've gone back to Office Snapshots to find the 10 worst. What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem "Internet-y" — come off even worse. We'll start with Yahoo's New York digs.
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The 10 worst workspaces in tech
We've toured the top 10 workspaces in tech. Now, we've gone back to Office Snapshots to find the 10 worst. What makes them so bad? Some offend with exposed fluorescent lights, gray cubicles and a dystopian corporate sheen. But others, with their pseudo-hip graffiti, kindergarten toys and plastic decorations — all in a desperate attempt to seem "Internet-y" — come off even worse. We'll start with Yahoo's New York digs.
More »
data portability
MySpace to eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo: Thanks for the add!
Who are these people? That's the problem I've long had with sites like Twitter and eBay, which offer anonymous user names and little else to go by. And that's been the charm of Facebook, which aims to tie online identities with real ones by asking for work and school information, which is harder to fudge than a screen name. Had eBay and Twitter announce a partnership to share data with Facebook, I'd be impressed. Instead, they, as well as Yahoo, have partnered with MySpace instead to share profile data. Buffoonish technopundits are hailing this as an "advance in data portability." But what does it really mean? Now, in addition to a login like "awesomeguy1980," I'll get to see drunken party snapshots of someone before I reject their Twitter follower request.
online advertising
Yahoo's $1 billion Google search dreams dissolve
Yahoo's stock has stayed well above its premerger level of $19, suggesting that its post-Microsoft-bid performance isn't just a matter of shorts covering their positions. Perhaps ever-optimistic Wall Street arbitrageurs believe Steve Ballmer will come back with another offer. Or perhaps buy-and-hold types believe Yahoo will outsource search advertising to Google, increasing its cash flow by $1 billion. Well, bad news, Yahoo shareholders. Ballmer and Microsoft have moved on, to Facebook and other prospects. And Google? With Microsoft out of the picture, its executives are suddenly, conveniently worried about what a search deal would look like to Washington regulators. More »
10 worst workspaces
Think anybody's ever kicked the plastic white picket fence in Yahoo's New York office? How about one of the lounging employees? (Photos by skreuzer)
Next: Mozilla's Toronto office
Yahoo
YahooThink anybody's ever kicked the plastic white picket fence in Yahoo's New York office? How about one of the lounging employees? (Photos by skreuzer)
Next: Mozilla's Toronto office
deals
Chernin and Murdoch protest talks with Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL too much
How badly does News Corp. want to move MySpace out the door? During yesterday's quarterly earnings call with analysts, News Corp. president and COO Pete Chernin and chairman Rupert Murdoch said they haven't discussed a merging properties with Microsoft, AOL or Yahoo in quite some time. Like maybe 14 days. Chernin: "I have not had a conversation with Microsoft or AOL in a couple of weeks." Rupert Murdoch "Nor have I." Silicon Alley Insider doesn't believe the disclaimers, reminding us that at the end of the last quarter, Murdoch denied interest in Yahoo even as he'd ordered a team to make the deal happen.
breakdowns
Yahoo's real leadership problem: David Filo
Everyone's piling on Jerry Yang, saying Yahoo's founder-CEO needs to go. Why? The weak stock that provoked Microsoft's unsolicited bid may have been the result of his absentee ownership over the years. But Yahoo's deeper problem is the rot in its technical prowess. And that has everything to do with the quieter cofounder, David Filo. Filo has stayed behind the scenes, but wields considerable power over Yahoo's infrastructure. Requests for more hardware go through him, for example. When Yahoo executive Jeff Weiner joked in an internal all-hands movie about not going through IT because it was "too much paperwork," the audience surely laughed because they knew exactly what he meant. More »
5:00 PM on Wed May 7 2008
By Owen Thomas
6,153 views,
33 comments
Latest by X-Y: @BaldDog Bingo. The absolute correct source of "leadership problems" in Engineering, at Filo's expense apparently. more »
eric jackson
Yahoo shareholder plots July 3 revolt
Yahoo will hold its annual shareholders' meeting on July 3. Investors angry over how Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang the Yahoo board handled merger negotiations with Microsoft — paging Gordon Crawford and Bill Miller — have until next Thursday to do so by submitting an alternate slate of directors to replace the current board. Wall Street analysts don't expect it to happen, reports the Financial Times. Activist shareholder Eric Jackson, the president of Ironfire Capital, isn't listening to them, however. More »
exits
Stewart Butterfield grooms beard for ... investors?
Long before he and Flickr cofounder Caterina Fake spawned daughter Sonnet, Stewart Butterfield had a manly thatch of russet facial hair that screamed "Daddy." He's thus the natural winner of Fortune's first beard-off; other contenders like Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, and Yelp's Russel Simmons might as well not have bothered. There's one curiosity about his win, though: Why would a judge praise Butterfield's beard for being "trimmed nicely, edgy, yet mature, so he doesn't look 18 sitting in front of investors"? We don't think judge John Allan, the owner of a chain of grooming clubs, has any special insight into Butterfield's career plans. But he's nonetheless on target: We've heard Butterfield, who sold Flickr to Yahoo more than three years ago, has left Flickr general manager Kakul Srivastava — his "hero" — in charge of his startup baby, so he can tend to his real one, and is ready to bolt from Yahoo.
project granola
Microsoft's plan for Web growth, minus Yahoo and Facebook
Sure, Microsoft would buy Facebook, but management knows Zuckerberg's not going to sell — and unlike Yang, he controls his company's board. As for Yahoo, well, "Yahoo can twist," one source told BoomTown. "Microsoft has lots and lots of other options." Redmond's favorite? Granola. Microsoft's internal plans for a post-Yahoo reality are code-named "Project Granola" because the company now wants to grow its online properties "organically," like every hippy's favorite breakfast food. But to us, the name seems utterly fitting in its blandness: Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told the WSJ that Microsoft's big plans include more "advances" in search, more marketing and more meetings in Redmond, Washington. That kind of bureaucratic strategy sounds like management needs a high colonic, not just more dietary fiber. (Photo by Adry Long)
yahoo
Humbled Yang disavows high-fives, says he was "very happy" to deal with Microsoft
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has not been replaced by chairman Roy Bostock, Kara Swisher reports. Yang's reputation, however, has taken a severe tarnishing. How far has his reputation fallen? More »
jerry yang
Yahoo can find its way, but only if it stops searching
Jerry Yang's spin campaign about why the Microsoft bid fell through is transparent. He's not trying to cajole Steve Ballmer back to the negotiating table; he's trying to cover his rear and appease indignant shareholders. The only reason he's so open about accepting a new bid from Microsoft, I think, is that he's not expecting another one to come. Ballmer has more or less said he thinks that Yahoo is worth less and less every day; last Saturday, when Yang flew up with cofounder David Filo to meet with Ballmer one last time, was as close as the two will ever get to agreeing on Yahoo's worth. The thing is, unless Yang makes some dramatic shifts, Ballmer may well be right. More »
1:40 PM on Tue May 6 2008
By Owen Thomas
2,044 views,
7 comments
Latest by FungibleMind: @feeldumb "Google would have much more well targeted information from their search data than Yahoo! will ever have." Wrong. Yahoo! has as good or better data than Google in both depth (length of time) and breadth (services, media, platforms), more »
the chart
MySpace's technical triumph
The conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley is that MySpace, based in Los Angeles, is a tech nightmare, blaring songs through a user's speakers while crashing all the time. Skilled engineers are in short supply down south, so the website must be falling over all the time, right? Not so. Pingdom, a website-monitoring service, has tracked how often some of the top social networks have gone offline. Twitter, based in Web-savvy San Francisco, has been down for 37 hours from January through April. MySpace has been up 99.96 percent of the time. That's 33 percent less downtime than Yahoo 360, and 60 percent less than Google's Orkut. Score one for the LA crowd. The chart: More »
great moments in hr
Decker: Yahoos upset over Microsoft are just tired and old
The people who really matter — Yahoo shareholders — are angry about the way Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang handled negotiations with Microsoft. But there are angry Yahoo employees, too. Problem is, top Yahoo management doesn't seem to want to hear from either group. Watch this excerpt from Tech Tickeras Yahoo president Sue Decker dismisses Yahoo dissenters as people who are "tired and feeling late stages in their career."
clips
Decker: We only told shareholders about Microsoft's $31 offer
Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock told reporters that shareholders supported Jerry Yang's decision to refuse Microsoft's bid for the company, even when it reached $33 per share. But yesterday, major shareholders Bill Miller and Gordon Crawford — who combined control about 13 percent of the company — said they did not agree with the way Yang handled negotiations. In this excerpt from Yahoo's own Tech Ticker, Sarah Lacy asks Yahoo president Sue Decker, "Who are these institutional shareholders who are supporting $37, $38 per share? Can you shed any light on that?" Watch as Decker explains that what Bostock really meant is that Yahoo's board supports Yahoo's board, which only really ever told shareholders about Microsoft's $31 per share offer. "And that's the end of the story."
yahoo
