Yahoo is a fascinating story these days.
On one hand, it’s the subject of a hostile takeover bid from Microsoft that may or may not happen depending on which way the wind is blowing, each company’s most recent financial performance (Yahoo – okay; Microsoft – great), how Jerry Yang and/or Steve Ballmer feel when they get of bed in the morning, etc.
In the meantime, Yahoo is furiously working to give itself a corporate makeover. All of a sudden, it’s unveiled a new social strategy where it will become a friendly and open platform – in addition to offering content and services to millions of consumers.
It’s an ambitious strategy and the bold moves that everyone was expected from Yang when he took over as CEO, and promised dramatic changes in 100 days.
From here, there are two questions:
1. Is it too late?
Why now as opposed to a year ago when the idea of a Microsoft takeover was mere speculation. What has prompted Yahoo to get bullish strategically and embrace some of the key trends (openness, portability, etc.).
2. Does it matter?
One of Yahoo’s biggest problems is it allowed itself to get stale. Whether it was complacency and bad management decisions, Yahoo became a super tanker unable to move quickly strategically, rather than a flexible online player able to take advantage of key trends. Yahoo tried to address this situation by acquiring some interesting start-ups but then essentially ignored the start-ups it had brought into the fold.
In the process, Yahoo lost serious ground to competitors. A few examples: Yahoo Search is a distant second behind Google; Yahoo Mail is having a hard time competing against GMail and Live.com/Hotmail, and Yahoo is having such a difficult time in the ad business, it’s turning to Google for help. From a personal perspective, I rarely use Yahoo services with the exception of Yahoo Finance, del.icio.us and Flickr.
What’s interesting about Yahoo, however, is it has some terrific online properties that aren’t doing as well as they should. Whether it’s Yahoo staying independent or Microsoft taking over, the key question is whether Yahoo can get its groove back.
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Yahoo
They have been doing a lot of right things lately and really showed that they are willing to do what it takes to get the groove back.
I guess everything will depend on either market will believe it and give them a chance.
They have lost their brand placement in the market they are after. The world knows who they are but they are not utilized as the go to place for search or portal.