Sillicon Alley Insider - Henry Blodget | August 2, 2008 4:18 PM

Given the rampant speculation that Jerry Yang should or will exit stage left as Yahoo’s CEO, Yahoo’s Board had to do one of two things:

1. Can him
2. Reiterate full confidence in him.

Yahoo’s chairman Roy Bostock appears to have just done the latter in an interview with the New York Times:

Roy Bostock… said the board has no plans to replace its C.E.O. “I have absolute confidence in Jerry and the management,” he said in an interview last week.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technology August 1, 2008, 8:42PM EST

The annual gathering featured familiar themes, from hopeful strategies to unhappy shareholders, amid little Microsoft fallout

by Robert D. Hof

It’s almost as if the past six months never happened.

Yahoo’s (YHOO) much anticipated annual meeting on Aug. 1 left its current board and co-founder and Chief Executive Jerry Yang intact, in control, and still insisting they can return to contention with runaway rival Google (GOOG). Despite rampant shareholder anger that the Internet icon couldn’t close any of a series of deals with Microsoft (MSFT) since the software giant’s unsolicited $45 billion buyout bid Feb. 1, the long-delayed annual meeting was remarkable mostly for how little happened.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sillicon Alley Insider - Henry Blodget | August 1, 2008 10:06 AM

The Yahoo shareholder meeting is likely to be one hell of an anti-climax, but for those who want to watch, here’s the link. It’s starts at 10AM PT.

Yes, shareholders will vent and, yes, Yahoo will elect a few new board members. But the only real drama is who will fill Carl Icahn’s third board seat. The leading candidates, apparently, are Frank Biondi (Ran Viacom a hundred years ago before Sumner Redstone canned him) and John Chapple, the ex head of Nextel.

UPDATE: So it might be a bit more interesting: Former AOL CEO Jon Miller, who was supposed to come aboard with Icahn and a candidate to be named later, may be wavering. And it turns out that two of Icahn’s three slots (he’ll get one) don’t have to get filled for up to two weeks following the meeting. So this may drag on a while longer.

Read the rest of this entry »

BUSINESSWEEK - Posted by: Rob Hof on August 01

Yahoo’s long-awaited (or long-dreaded) annual shareholders meeting is about to begin, and wireless gods willing, I’ll be liveblogging the proceedings—even if they aren’t expected to be very exciting. You can also watch the Webcast here. Among others, Kara Swisher at Boomtown and Steve Shankland at News.com are liveblogging as well.

There are about 600 chairs in this cavernous ballroom at the San Jose Fairmont. It doesn’t look like they’re going to come even close to getting filled. No doubt Yahoo was thinking a few weeks ago that there might be more drama here.

And we’re underway, with Chairman Roy Bostock at the podium. He introducing other board members who are here: Eric Hippeau, Vyomesh Yoshi, Arthur Kern, Maggie Wilderotter, and of course cofounder and CEO Jerry Yang.

Much more after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Sillicon Alley Insider - Michael Learmonth | July 31, 2008 4:05 PM

He’s about to become a Yahoo (YHOO) board member. He owns 5% of the company. Yet Carl Icahn, who led a proxy fight to replace Yahoo board and management, won’t be attending the annual shareholder meeting tomorrow. Why? In a blog post, he says “it will not do shareholders or Yahoo any good to have the annual meeting turn into a media event for no purpose.”

Please. Since when has Carl shied away from media events?

Read the rest of this entry »

Sillicon Alley Insider - Dan Frommer | July 28, 2008 2:11 PM

Now that Yahoo has settled with Carl Icahn, there’s no proxy battle drama left for Friday’s annual meeting. But that doesn’t mean everyone’s back to being friends again: Gordon Crawford of Capital Research and Management — Yahoo’s second-largest shareholder — is still angry at Yahoo (YHOO) Chairman Roy Bostock and CEO Jerry Yang — and might not vote for them Friday, the New York Post reports: Read the rest of this entry »

FORTUNE - Last Updated: July 24, 2008: 4:58 PM EDT

Steve Ballmer pledges to redouble efforts to go after Google and the online ad market.

By Yi-Wyn Yen, reporter

(FORTUNE) — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer put on his game face Thursday and told investors it was imperative for the company to “ante up” in its struggling online business.

During a 1 1/2-hour presentation with Wall Street analysts at the software giant’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters, Ballmer said the opportunities to make money from the Internet are too big for Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) to ignore. The company has already spent billions in an effort to catch up with Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) and he said the company will continue to invest heavily in the search market because it is “the starting point” of the web.

Read the rest of this entry »