Yahoo names new CEO

Yahoo names new CEO

Yahoo Inc. appointed Carol Bartz as CEO on January 13, 2009.

On Tuesday, Yahoo confirmed the appointment of the former CEO of Autodesk, replacing co-founder Jerry Yang, who will remain "actively involved" with the company. Yahoo president Sue Decker will leave the company as part of the shuffle.

Analysts, those who cover Yahoo for their brokerages have an optimistic view on the move. They praise Bartz' past experience and predict that she will bring discipline to Yahoo's ranks.

Ms. Bartz said in a company-wide Yahoo meeting Wednesday that she plans to spend a lot of time investigating whether to sell Yahoo's search business but that her "gut" was not to do that, according to people familiar with the meeting.

Christa Quarles of Thomas Weisel said Bartz brings good skill sets to Yahoo and could potentially be in a better position to revive deal talks than Yang. But she said any turnaround will take time, and that Yahoo still faces strong competitive risks to companies like Google Inc. (GOOG). She maintained an underweight, or sell, rating on the shares.

Quarles wrote in a statement, "While her position within the technology community is prominent, she brings little to no consumer, advertising or Internet experience. In addition, it took sometime for her to hit her stride at Autodesk. With this in mind and a turnaround as a general mandate, Yahoo's goal of 'creating indispensable experiences' will hopefully be redefined to reinstate the company's leadership position".

Yahoo recently secured Samsung Electronics to deliver Yahoo Internet widgets to Samsung televisions and hooked Virgin Mobile in the U.K. and T-Mobile in the U.S. to use Yahoo oneSearch to power mobile Web searches.