and security lapses, Yahoo appears to be adrift, listing, off course, capsizing. Name any unfavorable nautical condition, and it probably applies to Yahoo.Sunday, 22 July 2012
Marissa Explains It All
Posted on 23:42 by Maria Scott
Given its lousy financial performance, periodic bouts of layoffs, questionable patent litigation strategy and security lapses, Yahoo appears to be adrift, listing, off course, capsizing. Name any unfavorable nautical condition, and it probably applies to Yahoo.
and security lapses, Yahoo appears to be adrift, listing, off course, capsizing. Name any unfavorable nautical condition, and it probably applies to Yahoo.A large part of the blame for that lies with the people in charge of hiring the captain. Yahoo's board of directors has discarded three CEOs over the last four years. It squeezed a company cofounder out of the position, fired his replacement via a phone call, and then sent the next guy packing after just a matter of months when it was revealed he'd fed them a puffed-up resume.
With its latest hire, though, it's trying something different. Instead of taking up with another itinerant executive with experience leading a couple of low- to medium-profile tech companies, Yahoo has hired a Silicon Valley celebrity: Marissa Mayer.
By many accounts, Yahoo is lucky to have landed her. Mayer has been with Google since before Google was a verb. She was its 20th employee, and during her career she's played key roles in some of the company's most successful products: Maps, News, Books, Images, Gmail, not to mention good old Search. She is not in the habit of working quietly behind the scenes. Between the public appearances, magazine covers and interviews, hers is probably Google's third-most recognizable face behind cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Now she's the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company, freshly scooped up from a top spot at arguably the world's most powerful Internet outfit. And she has her work cut out for her. Just after she took the job, Yahoo announced its second-quarter numbers, and they were a typical shade of glum: declining overall revenue, stagnant display ad revenue, and continuing feeble results from its Microsoft partnership.
Soon we'll get to see if Mayer is the one who can finally rekindle Yahoo's spirit. The company hasn't stood tall as an innovator in years, and at this point fresh ideas for new products and services sound a lot more exciting than fresh ideas about how to cut back costs, eliminate more people and shrink down to a smaller yet profitable company -- though the latter still might have to be part of the plan as well. At Google, Mayer was at the forefront of several projects that locked in the company's identity as an innovation leader over the last decade.
Mayer has her doubters too, though. She proved to be a razor-sharp top executive at Google, but serving as the head of an entire company is a different matter. Her talents with engineering and design might not be exactly what Yahoo needs to pull off a revival. And there's the fact that Yahoo just isn't in nearly as good shape as Google.
Yahoo is saddled with activist shareholders, a board that just underwent an awkward reshuffle, and overall low morale. Google has its problems too, but its issues are minor compared to Yahoo's. On balance, Google's a winner. It doesn't leak top executives like a sieve -- Mayer herself notwithstanding, of course -- and you never hear much about boardroom drama. Mayer will now have to show how she handles a somewhat gloomier place.
Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Marissa-Explains-It-All-75692.html
Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Marissa-Explains-It-All-75692.html
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