It was the failure of too much for Jerry Yang

Independence at a price. It will even cost to Jerry Yang his CEO position at the head of Yahoo!. For refusing to sell, last may, this giant of the Net to 47.5 billion to Microsoft, the co-founder of the company of Sunnyvale will leave office as soon as a new CEO is appointed. "Jerry and the Board had a continuous dialogue on his estate and we are all agreed that the time had come to make the transition with a new CEO," said in a release of Yahoo! Chairman Roy Bostock.

The announcement of this eviction, the action of the portal was a 12 jump yesterday at the mi-séance on Wall Street. And speculation were underway on the future pattern of Yahoo! name. Among the possible contenders, press American yesterday quoted Susan Decker, the current President of Yahoo! Inc., Dan Rosensweig, former Director Executive of Yahoo!, Meg Whitman, the ex-patronne of eBay, or even Jonathan Miller, the ex-PDG of AOL.

Sling shareholders

After his return to the head of the group 18 months ago, Jerry Yang had fought to keep his company independent. Before the fronde of certain shareholders, including the raider Carl Icahn angry by the refusal to sell the company to Microsoft, Jerry Yang pledged in return to an advertising partnership with Google. This agreement provided the display of some advertisements targeted next to the results of research of the portal. He could bring up to 800 million dollars in the first year. But under the pressure of some advertisers concerned by this alliance between giants and the investigation of the regulatory authorities us, Google has decided, there are a few days to put an end to this partnership. It was the failure of too much for Jerry Yang. But good news for Microsoft that could return to the negotiating table.

Even if Steve Ballmer, CEO of the software giant, announced no longer be interested in the Portal: "this comment could be simply a negotiating strategy or show the difficulties encountered with the direction of Yahoo! during the buyout proposal failed," said in a note James Mitchell, analyst for Goldman Sachs.

"Too nice boy".

Despite hearing of 542 million unique visitors in October against 712 million for Google according to ComScore, Yahoo! has registered low growth of 1 of its turnover in the third quarter against 31 for its competitor. And profitability declined 3 against 23 for Google.

But it must be said that the current crisis has weighed on the price for the sale of banner ads in Yahoo!, one of its main sources of income with sponsored links. Other actors also point the finger a management problem related to personality of Jerry Yang. "It is too nice boy," said Mark Cuban, who sold his Broadcast company for $ 5.9 billion in Yahoo! in 1999.

The "nice" boy still announced a plan for the removal of 10 of the population is 1,500 people, on the end of the year to improve the profitability of the group. This savings plan expected to reach $ 400 million. "In reality, should terminate the employment of 3,000 to 5,000 people, said Kevin Ryan, former CEO of DoubleClick, sold to Google.". The company has too many different products, a hundred, and it should focus on its real assets such as research on the Internet. Yahoo! is profitable and I think it can remain independent and did not need Microsoft to develop.

The number one world of software attempts to more than ten years to impose on the Internet. Without success. The Online Services Microsoft Business division, in which appears the message MSN Messenger, or MSN Portal recorded a turnover of 770 million in the third quarter increased by 15, for a growing $ 480 million operating loss of... 94. "None of the Microsoft Internet initiatives yielded results and we do not believe that this will change," believe in a note to Cowen analysts Jim Friedland and Kevin Kopelman. Two analysts estimate that if the group is not able to buy all or part of Yahoo! here in 2010, it will be then declared offside in the online advertising market.