Friday, May 16, 2008

If Yahoo! escapes this latest chapter ...

The Yahoo! story will accelerate, possibly as early as this weekend, despite Jerry Yang's response to Carl Icahn and company late yesterday.

Dealing with a Microsoft bid and dealing with Icahn are two completely different scenarios.

Sooner or later, greed will enter the picture and if the major stockholders were to be convinced to sell to Icahn, Yahoo! could end up being sold off in pieces.

Although this story has now dragged out for weeks, and everyone pretty much thought it was over as Microsoft 'publicly' said they were walking away, this latest chapter, like it or not, is always an inherent risk of being a public company.

I'm not implying that Yang's response was 'window dressing' aimed as calming employees. It may have been a rallying call to larger shareholders. It could just be 'history' and Yang not wanting to give up?

The writing is on the wall for Yahoo!. If Steve Ballmer isn't interested in coming back to the table, it's time for Yahoo! to sell to a company that will do everything they can to maximize values for their stockholders AND employees.

If Yang can manage to hold on, the pieces need to go into place real quick and that could very well mean a 'significant' partnership with Google?

According to Hitwise earlier this week, Google just managed to oust Yahoo as the Number 1 visited home page on the Internet. Even if by a small amount, that was Yahoo's 'edge'.

The 'drama' continues. Stay tuned.

Update: CNET has posted Yang's latest 'letter to employees' regarding the above here.

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