Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) has confirmed its appointment of Carol Bartz, former CEO of Autodesk Inc. , as CEO of Yahoo, taking over for Jerry Yang who declared he was stepping down in November.
In a statement released by Yahoo, Roy Bostock, chairman of the board,
called Bartz "the exact combination of seasoned technology executive
and savvy leader that the Board was looking for... She is admired in
the Valley as well as on Wall Street for her deep management expertise,
strong customer orientation, excellent people skills, and firm
understanding of the challenges facing our industry."
Yes, Bartz is an experienced executive: Most recently, she was executive chairman of Autodesk, where she served as CEO from 1992 to 2006. Further, Bartz serves on the board of Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) and NetApp Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP).
But, as former CEO of a software company, with no Web experience, Bartz seems a bit of an odd choice for a media company.
Some in the industry have suggested that this deal sets Yahoo up perfectly for a rekindled relationship with Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) whereby Microsoft would acquire its search business. According to Kara Swisher at All Things Digital, "several sources" close to both companies have confirmed that, with Bartz in as CEO, a search deal is "more likely."
Such a deal would make some sense for the two hopeless romantics: According to data released by hitwise last month, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has gained more ground on both Microsoft and Yahoo in search, holding 72 percent of the market. And at the CES conference in Las Vegas last week, Steve Ballmer, while calling a full-out acquisition out of the question, suggested the possibility of a different deal with Yahoo.
"The fact that Yahoo has a CEO, and that it's not Jerry Yang, certainly puts it in a better position to do a deal with Microsoft," says Matt Rosoff, lead analyst at Directions on Microsoft.
"Most likely [it] would be a search deal, under which Microsoft provides search results and search advertisements on all Yahoo sites and properties, then splits the revenue. Yahoo would save on costs by eliminating its own search division and search ad platform."
While the Bartz pick might make for a smoother relationship with Microsoft, some in the industry suggest the decision was simply made as a safe but temporary one, intended only to clean up Yahoo's mess.
"Several people have mentioned that she's 60 and she's been in the Valley a very long time -- so they obviously didn't hire her to be CEO for the next 10 years," says Jay Bhatti, former Microsoft consultant and co-founder of Spock.com. "They hired her to be the transitional CEO for the next two to three years, clean up the management staff, divest the right businesses, sell the right businesses, and get someone in there more in line from what you'd expect from a Yahoo CEO."
Yahoo certainly does need a good cleansing, but others argue that neither stability nor Bartz's executive experience are the answer to the company's problems.
"It was the safe pick. They picked a tried and true CEO -- but this company needs to be shaken up," says Scott Testa, professor of marketing at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. "[This is] exactly what they don't need. They need someone to really shake things up there because that place is a train wreck.
"The name of the company represents the attitude of the board," says Testa. "They're all Yahoos."
— Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution
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