Word: microsoft
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Every time there is news about the internet portal Yahoo!(YHOO), it makes the front pages. The only story about Yahoo, however, that deserved attention was the monstrous violation of fiduciary duty that its board made when it turned down Microsoft's (MSFT) offer to buy the company. Beyond that, Yahoo is now a relatively small company with faltering profits that is no longer even important to its own industries, either media or the internet...
...media has become fascinated with Yahoo again over the last few weeks as it finally found a new CEO to run the company in the place of founder Jerry Yang who was part of the Microsoft foul-up. Carol Bartz was the head of Autodesk (ADSK) from 1992 to 2006. She deserves whatever credit she got for improving Autodesk's fortunes. The stock soared over the period that she ran the company. (See pictures of TIME's Wall Street covers...
...numbers are not the reason that Yahoo does not matter. What matters is that it is no longer a company with even a modest voice in the media industry. The time when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer might have bought it or its search division is probably over. Ballmer is, as most good businessmen should be, ruthless beyond the imagination of the general public. He gave Yahoo's board a chance to do the right thing for its shareholders. Once Yahoo turned Ballmer down, he kept leaking comments about ongoing interest to the press. Just as Yahoo was beginning take...
Layoffs at big companies are so common now that it is novel when a day goes by without Microsoft (MSFT), Caterpillar (CAT), or Macy's (MC) letting thousands of people go. There are a relatively small number of America's largest companies which will almost certainly not have significant layoffs. One of them might close an office in Turkey, another could replace telephone operators with an automated system, but each is in a unique position that makes it highly unlikely for them to want or need to fire employees...
...year. If the company wants to control personnel costs, it can simply stop hiring. Google has been adding employees at a dizzying rate for four years. Google, like Apple, has a tremendous interest in keeping its R&D, marketing, product development, and engineering projects going forward as rivals like Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo! (YHOO) falter. Google has a chance to pick up market share from both companies and improve its competitive position against Microsoft in the PC application business. It can significantly improve its edge by putting money into initiatives while its rivals are cautious or under-funded. The world...