Following up on our coverage last week that Yahoo is close to naming a new CEO to replace Jerry Yang, the WSJ is reporting that former AutoDesk chief Carol Bartz has accepted the offer. Although no official announcements were made by Yahoo yet, citing the usual “people familiar with the situation”, the Journal reports that Yahoo is set to announce the appointment of Ms. Bartz anytime in the coming days.
Although Ms. Bartz is a good choice for the next Yahoo CEO with her experiencing running a company as big as Yahoo, analysts are doubting whether Ms. Bartz appointment would be of big help in making changes to Yahoo’s Search and Advertising business which has not been performing well since the Yahoo crisis started. Analysts has also casted their doubts on whether Ms. Bartz could well fit into the fast-changing Web 2.0 environment.
But then, based on their previous experience, Yahoo doesn’t seem to be in need of a CEO with those kind of experiences. And besides, they can always put a web 2.o-search and advertising kind of person to be the No. 2 person in Yahoo.
This leads us to a related issue raised by Kara Swisher – that is whether Sue Decker is staying on Yahoo or is she about to leave Yahoo considering the fact that she was among the nomineees to replace Jerry Yang? If Ms. Bartz would step in to become Yahoo’s CEO, she would certainly need Sue Decker’s inside knowledge of how Yahoo operates although Yang is still at the Yahoo Board and so Ms. Bartz could always make use of him. So, I doubt if Ms. Bartz will opt to keep Ms. Decker, or Ms. Decker would want to stay on board.
Now, let’s all wait for the official Yahoo announcement and see how this will bring good tidings to Yahoo and finally bring back Yahoo into a stable condition as an organization.
