Saturday, 14 June 2008

Everybody hates "Jerry Yang!"

Jerry Yang and David Filo, the founders of Yahoo!Image via WikipediaUnless you've been living under a stone for around 5 months, or happen to be right side of Carl Icahn's brain, you'll know that the Microsoft / Yahoo financial romance is OFF!. Shareholders are furious and end users are licking their Google shaped wounds over the admission by Jerry Yang that Yahoo and Google have entered into a something reporters are calling "the Google/yahoo ad pact".

The news following the run up to this fallout and beyond has been like the discovery channel with herds of men racing around snapping and growling and trying desperately to protect their precious $30 shares. But alas, they were carried off in the night and mauled down to $3 each, poor little things.

So bad old Jerry Yang signed the pact with the devil, instead of sealing a deal with "the devil", but this devil is worse than that devil right?

£22.7 billion is a lot of money, so why would the CEO of Yahoo turn it down?

head throughout and the eyes of both end users "Well for one reason, i think the Nazi style tactics of Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and activist investor Carl Icahn can't have helped smooth the connection. It all seams to have been more of a gun shot wedding with a pistol aimed at Jerry Yangs head throughout and the eyes of end users disappointed in services" and shareholders "hungry for a cut of the pie" watching from the bleachers.

Yang has never wanted to sell out to Microsoft and i must admit that a correlation between two companies with influence in the paid advertising sector makes sense, especially in a non exclusive deal, even if that deal is with the "father of lies". Of course the deal will need to be signed of by all and sundry to make sure that it doesn't breach any laws, but it does look like it is going ahead.

So what now?

Well if Carl Icahn gets his way in early July, all 10 Yahoo board members including co developer / CEO Yang will be ousted in favour of a group of Ichans financial bedfellows and Ichan will continue to make Roy Bostock 'yahoos chairman' feel like his just added his old girlfriend to his facebook profile.

Is Jerry safe?

If the Google deal fails to improve the cost of Yahoo's shares then i would say not, at least not from investors and definitely not from Ichanzilla. It is a shame, but as it has been mentioned in the press Yang failed to impress during the conference call announcing the Google deal and everyone loves a CEO to be charismatic. Jerry Yang is smart and i think he has made an extremely brave move in the face of overwhelming criticism by shareholders and those who a few months ago would have put their hands up as "yahoo users".

Lets face it, Microsofts redeeming features on the web are MSN and not much else, Yahoo have branched out in the field of email, image and search (ok its trying) but at least it is trying, so why doesn't everyone just get off Jerry's back and wait to see exactly what this Google deal is all about. I for one admire Yahoo for not crumbling and selling out to the enemy.

Lets all try to "like" Jerry Yang a tad more, after all "You only get an oooo" with Yagloo.

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