The tech and mainstream media have thoroughly denounced the two major announcements made by Yahoo! last week. The first announced a cessation of negotiations with Microsoft. The second announced an advertising distribution deal with Google.
From the outside, it appears Yahoo!, (in a stunning 24-hour period), radically devalued the portfolios of its shareholders and ceded a great deal of ground paid search to Google. 72-ish hours later, both statements still feel right. Instead of selling out to Microsoft and making everyone even richer, it looks like Yahoo!’s golden goose is going to die the death of a thousand tiny cutts cuts.
Michael Arrington started the ball rolling at TechCrunch Friday morning with the scathing, “Massive Destruction of Shareholder Value, Employee Moral and Internet Balance of Power“. As the hours passed and Arrington’s fingers warmed up, he took two more swipes at Yahoo! with, “Hey Microsoft, How ‘Bout that First Deal You Offered?” and, “NYTimes Article Reverberates Through Yahoo; Who’s their next CEO?“
The last article questioning who was to be Yahoo!’s next CEO was a reflective riff on a piece by Joe Nocera that appeared in Saturday’s New York Times, “Oh Jerry, It’s No Longer Your Baby“. Nocera’s take reads like a personal memo from him to Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang and opens with the topic line, “re: shafting your shareholders”. In it, Nocera forcefully reminds Yang that the company belongs to its shareholders and that Yang and many other early Yahooligans got enormously wealthy by selling it to them.
Business Week noted that the only clear winner of the week was Google in, “Google’s Yahoo Rebound Play” by Robert Hof. Barron’s writer, Eric Savitz appears to agree with Hof in, “Yahoo Google, the Morning After“. Savitz’s piece also contains quotes from many Wall St. types, each of which appear to agree with him and Hof. A couple of those Wall St. types still cling to hopes Microsoft will come back again or a shareholder revolt will force Yahoo! into Microsoft’s hands.
What those Wall St. types are not considering is the humongous employee severance poison pill package Yahoo!’s board passed in the event a take-over forced employees to change departments or job descriptions. Seriously, Microsoft is probably not interested anymore as the purposefully generous severance packages could cost Microsoft between $500 and $800 million, according to Yahoo!’s estimates.
Kara Swisher at AllThingsD expects Microsoft to come in swinging with her piece, “Yahoogle?: Microsoft Will ‘Let Loose the Dogs of War’“
Tomorrow morning, expect a torrent of tirades as commentators have had a full weekend to think about what to say.
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