Posts tagged Carol Bartz
What’s next for Yahoo?
Jan 18th
Posted by Melinda Varley in RSS Feed
Jerry Yang has gone – the pioneer of Yahoo, a guy that can be credited with bringing the internet to masses. Well, maybe that is a bit extreme, but he did change the way we communicate on the internet. In my eyes, he was first.
From 1995 until the early 2000s Yahoo reigned the internet search landscape and was the first online navigational guide to the web. Now Google may argue with that, as it has been around since late 1998, but Google as a start-up didn’t attract as much investment capital as Yahoo and took a little longer to get operations off the ground…and online.
In the early days, Silicon Valley investors pitched in US$2 million for Yahoo. Google attracted just US$100,000, initially. Six months later it got an extra US$25 million – making the Yahoo the underdog.
In most movies, the underdog wins. It is who we back, not just out of sympathy, but usually because we see so much untapped potential.
That is how we will always see Yahoo – an underdog with a lot of potential.
It has been a struggle for Yahoo – there is no denying that. Especially over the past few years which has seen the great Carol Bartz – whom originally replaced Jerry as CEO of Yahoo – pushed in and out as quick as you can say, well, Yahoo; share prices dips, shareholders causing a stir and profits plunging as the economy exercises its relentless payback.
The “global internet communications, commerce and media company that offers a comprehensive branded network of services to more than 345 million individuals each month worldwide” somehow lost its groove soon after the turn of the millennium.
Perhaps they should have opted for Microsoft’s offer in 2008 of US$44 billion. But no one saw the dotcom crash coming, or subsequent enduring financial crisis – even September 11 had an impact.
Yahoo’s current market value stands at about US$20 billion. Its localised partnerships in a variety of markets have seen advertising revenues jump and services boosted but it simply isn’t enough to mark a return to its heyday.
In a letter to Yahoo’s chairman of the board, Yang said he was leaving Yahoo to pursue “other interests outside of Yahoo”.
Perhaps it is time Jerry had a break. It’s been a long hard run.
But without Jerry’s passion, his protective watch over the company he built from the ground up, can Yahoo continue to survive?
Some analysts have said that Jerry has been an impediment to the sale or restructuring of the business. In addition to leaving the board, he is also giving up his title of “Chief Yahoo”, which may give CEO Scott Thomson a bit more freedom. If not more pressure from shareholders.
For me, Yahoo is a household name. I have Yahoo mail, I love my localised Yahoo7 (partnership with Channel 7 here in Australia) and I love all the other ‘channels’ they have on their homepage – a real one-stop shop for news and everything else when I get into the office in the morning.
However, what does a search and advertising company need with Flickr, Yahoo Greetings, Yahoo Personals, Del.icio.us, Yahoo Pets, Blo.gs, Upcoming.org, Yahoo Music, Yahoo 360, or Horoscopes?
Such services have offered little value to Yahoo over the years.
The company has spent its time and resources maintaining services with a huge, financially unjustified overhead; all the while, its search market share continues to dwindle.
To remain a profitable business, Yahoo needs to refocus on the search market. They reckon the global search market is worth about US$11 billion a year. Yahoo should now concentrate its efforts on taking a bigger slice of that very big pie.
So long Jerry and thanks for everything.
Can Microsoft and Yahoo knock Google off its throne?
Feb 19th
Posted by Melinda Varley in RSS Feed
Steve Ballmer has described the approved partnership between Microsoft and Yahoo as a “milestone”, while Carol Bartz claims it to be a “breakthrough”. But why is this ‘alliance’ so significant?
The decision has been resting on the shoulders of the US Department of Justice and the European Commission for the past seven months. Japan, Korea and Taiwan are still yet to approve what will surely be a threat to Google’s ten year reign over the search market.
Google, which has a 85.78% share of the global search market, has sat on its throne quite comfortably this past decade as every competitor that has entered the market has still failed to even make a dent in Google’s audience. However, with a combined market share of almost 10%, Yahoo and Bing are proving serious in their bid for leadership of the search world.
Both CEO’s Bartz and Ballmer suggest the ‘alliance’ is a bid to boost innovation. More simply, it’s about creating more competition and boosting revenues.
The global search market is estimated to be worth around $33 billion. In the US alone it is said to be $4 billion and in the UK, marketers spent £1.75 billion in 2009 alone.
Yahoo is hoping to see some of that spend on its bottom line next year – it will be taking 88% of all search revenue generated from its partnership with Microsoft.
The question on everyone lips now is just how long will it take the pair to increase their share.
The deal will not be implemented straight away. In fact, it will take almost until the end of this year to know whether or not the alliance has been a success.
One thing we can be sure of though, is that it will certainly force Google to rethink its strategy (namely its Adwords platform which has in the past gathered criticism) and also keep it on its toes to innovate and offer bespoke offerings (not like Buzz!).
Poor Google. If you come in at the top there is only one place to go.
But Warren Cowan, CEO of Greenlight, writing for UTalkMarketing.com, is not convinced that Google’s grip on the search market will be strained.
He says that the idea that a Yahoo/Bing merger will create a search player with close to 30% market share (as quoted in AdAge) might be accurate for the US, but not in the UK – or western Europe for that matter.
Google is simply too big. But then again, isn’t what they said about all those banks that went bust (too big to fail)?
The big challenge now, however, is tempting away loyal Google users who have, for the past ten years, used little else when it comes to search.
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