Mozilla to end partnership with Google, strikes Firefox deal with Yahoo

Mozilla Corporation and Yahoo have announced a "strategic five-year partnership" agreement. The deal makes Yahoo the default search experience for Firefox on mobile devices and PCs.

The new deal replaces a longstanding partnership between Mozilla and Google which concludes at the end of this month after 10 years. The most recent three-year renewal of that agreement paid Mozilla $300 million a year.

As part of the pact, the announcement says, "Yahoo will introduce an enhanced search experience for U.S. Firefox users which is scheduled to launch in December 2014. It features a clean, modern and immersive design that reflects input from the Mozilla team."

The announcement also mentions, "a framework for exploring future product integrations and distribution opportunities to other markets."

According to Mozilla CEO, Chris Beard :

“Today we are announcing a change to our strategy for Firefox search partnerships.  We are ending our practice of having a single global default search provider. We are adopting a more local and flexible approach to increase choice and innovation on the Web, with new and expanded search partnerships by country.

The only new international search partner announced today is Yandex Search in Russia. Baidu will continue to be the default search partner for China, with Google, Bing, Youdao, Taobao and "other local options" available in China. For now at least, Google will continue to be the default search choice in the rest of the world, and it will continue to power the Safe Browsing and Geolocation features in Firefox.”

Brand new CEO for Yahoo

Yahoo has finally found a new chief executive to replace Carol Bartz and he is Scott Thompson, who till recently was the president of the PayPal division of eBay.

With the deterioration of Yahoo’s core business – user engagement declining, stagnant email product, lack of substantive mobile strategy – turnaround needs to happen at many levels, including product development, infrastructure improvement, talent retention, and brand building, among others, to return the company to a positive growth trajectory. Revenue has declined for the last 12 quarters and with competition continually innovating in these areas, execution of new strategic initiatives and product improvement could be challenging.

Thompson has a track record of proven success with PayPal emerging as a leader in online payments. The company has over 100mm people that have connected PayPal to their credit card and/or bank accounts, a meaningful technology lead, the trust that’s been built around the brand, and over $3.5 bn in mobile transactions already on the platform. It’s worth noting however, that previous CEO Carol Bartz was viewed as a strong restructuring hire who was overwhelmed by this challenge and the conflicting goals of Yahoo’s board and its shareholders.

Scott Thompson has a record of deep industry experience, having most recently served as President of PayPal with overall responsibility for establishing that company as the leading global online payment service. He previously served as PayPal’s Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Prior to PayPal, Mr. Thompson was Executive Vice President of technology solutions at Inovant, a subsidiary of Visa formed to oversee global technology for the organization. Thompson was also Chief Information Officer of Barclays Global Investors, where he implemented a new strategic technology platform and global infrastructure. In addition, he worked with Coopers and Lybrand, delivering information technology solutions to leading financial services clients.

From those who know him, he is said to have solid leadership skills and tends to focus on technology - both things Yahoo needs badly.

Scott Thompson: new CEO of Yahoo

Yahoo's previous turnaround attempts have flopped under three different leaders with dramatically different backgrounds - former movie mogul Terry Semel, beloved Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and profanity-spewing Silicon Valley veteran Carol Bartz.

Now, the struggling Internet company is making yet another unorthodox choice with announcement that it has lured Scott Thompson away from a lower-profile job running eBay's thriving PayPal service to step into the pressure-packed position as Yahoo's fourth CEO in less than five years.

The appointment raised questions among analysts, since Thompson, 54, has no experience in online content and advertising, Yahoo's chief sources of revenue. The timing of Thompson's hiring also came as a surprise, given that Yahoo's board has been considering a sale of all or part of the company since firing Bartz four months ago.

With Thompson's selection, Yahoo's board is signaling that it believes the company can still rebound, despite several years of losing ground to Google and Facebook in product innovation and online advertising.

Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock dismissed recent speculation that Yahoo might team up with buyout firms to take the company private.

Thompson's job will be to revive Yahoo's revenue growth and repair the company's fractured relationship with investors fed up with a litany of broken turnaround promises.

Yahoo was attracted by Thompson's impressive track record at PayPal, where he was chief technology officer for three years before becoming the online payment service's top executive in 2008. PayPal's annual revenue more than doubled from $1.9 billion when Thompson took over the division to an estimated $4.4 billion last year.

Thompson also will have to lift Yahoo's employee morale, which has deteriorated along with the company's fortunes.

His departure from PayPal threatens to hurt eBay Inc., where the payments service has emerged as the fastest-growing part of a company best known for running online auctions.
Thompson received a compensation package valued at $10.4 million, including a $645,000 salary, from eBay in 2010, according to regulatory documents. Yahoo did not disclose how much it offered to lure him away.

Yahoo awarded Bartz a compensation package valued at $47.2 million during her first year on the job in 2009. The pay, which included a $1 million salary, consisted most of stock incentives that didn't become as valuable as Yahoo projected because the company's stock remained in a funk during Bartz's tenure.

Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL team up to sell online ads

Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL are joining forces in an online advertising attack on Google and Facebook.

The alliance is designed to sell some of the less-prized ad space that Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and AOL Inc. have had trouble filling on their own.

Even as they share some resources, the three companies vowed to retain their independence and compete against each other with separate sales teams. For that reason, they said they don't expect U.S. antitrust regulators to object to the nonexclusive partnership before they begin selling ads together in January.

Ross Levinsohn, a Yahoo executive vice president, hailed the alliance as a "fundamental rethinking" of the Internet ad market.

That statement also could be interpreted as a bit of wishful thinking. Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL all need to change the direction of an online ad market that has been increasingly tilting in the direction of Google and Facebook.

Having already built a moneymaking machine in its dominant search engine, Google has become even more powerful in Internet marketing since it bought DoubleClick's ad service for $3.2 billion in 2008. That deal provided Google with a springboard to leap from text ads that appear next to search results into the graphical messages known as display advertising.

Facebook attracts more advertising as it becomes established as the Internet's most popular hangout. The company accumulates valuable insights into people's interests as its 800 million users share their passions. That advantage has helped Facebook become the leader in U.S. display advertising with a 16 percent share of the online ad market, according to the research firm eMarketer Inc.

Yahoo, the former leader, has seen its share fall from 18 percent in 2008 to 13 percent this year. Google's share of the display market moved from 2 percent in 2008 to 9 percent. Microsoft stands at 5 percent and AOL is hovering around 4 percent, according to eMarketer.

As it has fallen further behind in Internet advertising, Microsoft's online division has piled up operating losses of $7 billion since June 2008. Revenue at both Yahoo and AOL is steadily falling. Yahoo has been struggling so much that its board is mulling whether to sell all or part of the company.

Microsoft may eventually benefit from Facebook's success. It bought a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook for $240 million in 2007. By some estimates, Facebook is now worth three to five times more than it was when Microsoft made its investment.

By tapping into each other's technology, Yahoo, and AOL are betting they can save money and sell more advertising.

The partnership will cover a category of advertising that doesn't typically appear in the prime slots on websites. Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL believe that space will be in higher demand if they can succeed at creating a more efficient, transparent market that helps connect advertisers with the Web audiences best suited for their marketing campaigns.

Carol Bartz appointed CEO of Yahoo Inc

Carol Bartz has been appointed CEO of Yahoo Inc. As CEO, Carol replaces Jerry Yang, who is one of the co-founder of Yahoo.

Yahoo's decision to bring in an outsider apparently irked its president, Susan Decker, who also was a candidate for the CEO job. Both Decker and Bartz are on Intel Corp.'s board of directors.
Bartz's track record indicates she will move quickly to build upon Yahoo's strengths while doing her best to shed the weaknesses.

Bartz spent nearly 17 years at Autodesk, which specializes in making design software for architects and engineers. She was the San Rafael-based company's CEO from 1992 until 2006, when she stepped aside to become executive chairman - a job that paid her a $500,000 salary.

While Bartz was CEO at Autodesk, the company's annual revenue increased from nearly $300 million to $1.5 billion.

Bartz had established her management chops in nine years at Sun Microsystems Inc., where she eventually became the No. 2 executive behind the server maker's then-CEO, Scott McNealy. She also has worked at Digital Equipment Corp. and 3M.

Yahoo also is far larger than Autodesk, with annual revenue of more than $7 billion and roughly 13,000 employees, nearly twice the size of Autodesk's work force.

Bartz also will have to coexist with Yang, who will play the role of "Chief, Yahoo" while remaining on the company's board. Those two also share a boardroom together as directors at Internet gear maker Cisco Systems Inc.

Bartz is known for a no-nonsense approach. Before graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1971 with a degree in computer science, Bartz was a cheerleader, homecoming queen and a cocktail waitress - a job that helped pay her college tuition.

Supreme Court issues notice to Yahoo, MSN and Google

Internet: a bane or a boom, has been a common topic for discussion. However there is no denying the fact that the Internet has brought along with it quite a few vices.

Proving the point the Supreme Court of India has issued notices to the big three in the internet business, Yahoo, MSN and Google for showing advertisements promoting or encouraging female foeticide.

Online advertisements that promote sex determination tests have invited such an action by the Supreme Court. According to Indian Preconception and Prenatal Diagnostics Techniques act - PC-PNDT the determination of the sex of unborn baby is illegal. The act also prohibits any advertisements for the same. However the internet is being blatantly used by unscrupulous operators.

However the top three companies need to take a serious note of the issue.
The catch here is that such advertisements are permitted in some foreign countries.