At its SuiteWorld conference in San Jose, Calif., today, CEO Zach Nelson announced that cookware retailer Williams-Sonoma had picked NetSuite’s SuiteCommerce product as the backbone of its expansion into Australia.

If you think back, it was a year ago tomorrow that NetSuite moved into what it called at the time commerce-as-a-service, adding another option to the blank-as-a-service meme that tends to crop up in discussions around companies that offer pretty much anything via cloud infrastructure.

Nelson told me that Williams-Sonoma was able to roll the entire service out to four brands in three months. “It’s a very important win for us,” he said.

The point of SuiteCommerce is to create a seamless experience for customers, whether they’re buying something online or on the Web. As customers have essentially come to expect to be able to buy anything and everything online, the traditional back-end commerce engines like Microsoft’s Dynamics, Sage and others have tended to be imperfectly combined with patchwork products for selling on the Web.

The combination has never been ideal. Customer-facing bits have rarely if ever been unified with the ones that also face suppliers. That has a way of complicating things like managing inventory and supply chains. And things are getting even more complicated as machines are programmed to automatically buy things from other machines based on a predefined set of circumstances.

NetSuite built SuiteCommerce to speak directly to the core enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) functions that are already its bread and butter. In English, that means that the new engine comes into the process already knowing everything it needs to know about the business.

Separately NetSuite announced a partnership with AutoDesk, the design software company, that it says will speed up the process of designing and manufacturing a product, and also help take costs out along the way.

It’s also worth noting that NetSuite shares are trading at their highest levels ever today. They’re up 2.5 percent to $94.42.

But there no reason that the ability to collaborate and give quick feedback on a project can’t apply to specialized industries, and actually make a difference within specialized applications. Case in point: Autodesk is set to announce a batch of new features in its AutoCAD WS software that bring a Facebook-like activity feed into the arcane world of computer-assisted design software.

About a year ago I noted the release of AutoCAD for devices running Google’s Android mobile operating systems, which came after a successful launch on Apple’s iOS. Today, the company says its AutoCAD 1.5 allows CAD designs to be seen and shared both in a regular Web browser and on those mobile devices. And a new feature it calls Design Feed makes it easy for people working on a project to comment on its different aspects and have that feedback show up in a Facebook-Timeline-style feed.

One interesting trick: If you’re trying to make a point clear, you can snap a photo of what you mean — say, different options for a door handle on the design drawings for a car — and “pin” them to specific areas within the drawings, just as you might do on Pinterest.

Another application has some added social features, too: Autodesk 360 Mobile is getting its own social feed, making a collaborative design review process easier.

And while it all sounds kind of arcane, make no mistake: This is some widely used software. AutoCAD has 10 million users, and the mobile applications on iOS and Android have been downloaded more than eight million times. And for that matter, Autodesk apps don’t do so badly on the Mac, either. I’m not a designer or architect, but numbers like that make me wonder what I’m missing.

(Image from this Autodesk site showing AutoCAD WS in action on an iPad.)

Autodesk, known for its 3-D design and visual effects software, has agreed to buy Socialcam, in a deal worth approximately $60 million, both companies said. They said they expect the deal to close within 30 days.

Socialcam — which had only moved out of shared office space into its own headquarters in San Francisco’s SOMA neighborhood within the past two weeks (it’s in Voxer’s old office) — plans to continue to operate its product mostly independently, now with the backing of Autodesk as a corporate parent.

Socialcam is the No. 1 application on Facebook, with 3.7 million daily active users and 56 million monthly active users, according to AppData. However, those numbers are currently trending downward.

Meanwhile, Socialcam is the No. 36 free iPhone app in the U.S. (No. 1 in St. Vincent and the Grenadines!), with that number trending upward, according to App Annie.

The company has a remarkably small staff — just four employees, backed by the massive scaling capabilities of Amazon Web Services.

We’d been hearing talk about Socialcam being on the block for months, with other potential acquirers including Zynga and Google.

Socialcam CEO Michael Seibel said in an interview that being bought by Autodesk appealed because it came with the promise of staying mostly independent. “We loved the opportunity to grow, as opposed to folding into another product or extracting out the pieces,” he said.

Other recent Autodesk acquisitions that have kept their independence are Instructables and Pixlr.

Socialcam launched in March 2011 as a mobile project within live video start-up Justin.tv. The project was the brainchild of longtime Justin.tv CEO Seibel, who had enough conviction about it to spin it off, despite having very few users, at a time when Justin.tv was turning into more of a gaming video site. Seibel then took Socialcam through the Y Combinator program, which had previously backed Justin.tv.

For a time, Socialcam was yet another Instagram for video. And, in fact, that’s still what it is, though being compared to Instagram and running a popular mobile video start-up both have more cachet than they used to.

Earlier this year, Socialcam usage had exploded, along with other short-form video apps, after Facebook turned on some of its Open Graph features in April. Socialcam had also been particularly aggressive with featuring popular YouTube content, in ways that some considered sketchy.

Asked to reflect on that situation, Seibel defended Socialcam’s actions by saying that it acted within the bounds of Facebook’s and YouTube’s public APIs, and it continues to regularly interact with people with both companies.

Image © Brian Solis Socialcam CEO Michael Seibel

Seibel also said the Instagram comparison makes sense up to a point, but that video is much different from photos. “Where it breaks down is, videography is new. Not very many people yet feel comfortable taking videos in their everyday lives.”

Seibel’s goal for Socialcam, he said, is, “A year from now, I want the majority of your friends taking one video per week.”

“This kind of sea change doesn’t happen overnight,” he added. “Partnering with a bigger company allows us to address the long-term opportunity, and gets us out of the minute-by-minute start-up roller coaster.”

After spinning out from Justin.tv and going through Y Combinator, Socialcam had raised a party seed round from more than 30 investors, including many Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and a few Hollywood names.

The company’s close competitor Viddy set expectations a bit higher for itself by raising $30 million in Series B funding around the same time.

Besides Seibel, Socialcam’s other team members are technical co-founders Ammon Bartram and Guillaume Luccisano, and community manager and power user “The Roxie.”

The satellite trucks are parked, the signs have gone up and the pundits have placed their bets.

Everyone seems to think they know what Apple has in store at its event on Wednesday: Namely, a higher-resolution iPad and, perhaps, a revamped Apple TV.

But it’s Apple, so you can never be too sure that there won’t be a surprise.

Whatever the company has to say, AllThingsD will be on hand to give live coverage and analysis. Check back here, starting just ahead of the event at 10 am PT.

9:35 am: We are being let in now.

9:54 am: Okay, took us a bit to get set up, but we are online and with a backup system in place, as well.

9:57 am: Tim Cook has taken the stage and offered up his “good morning,” to applause.

He promises he has a great morning planned. “I want to get started by talking about the post-PC revolution. … It is happening all around us, and at an amazing pace.” And, of course, he says Apple is leading.

9:59 am: Such devices have to be way easier than any PC has ever been.

We have three blockbuster post-PC devices, Cook says: The iPod, the iPhone and the iPad.

“Any company would be thrilled to have just one of these devices,” he said. Apple has all three. It sold 172 million post-PC devices, accounting for 76 percent of the company’s revenue, he said.

“Apple has its feet firmly planted in the post-PC future,” he said.

10:02 am: Stores are important because these devices are new to many people, Cook said, showing pictures of the company’s newest store, in Amsterdam, which marked its 362nd outlet.

Some 110 million people visited a retail store last quarter, Cook said.

10:04 am: Cue video of Apple’s new Grand Central Terminal store.

10:04 am: Another key element of our post-PC success is iOS, Cook says, showing an iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, with 315 million such devices sold through last year, including 62 million last quarter alone.

Now he’s talking about Siri and playing some clips of Siri from other parts of the world, such as Australia and France.

“Siri is your best friend, your intelligent personal assistant who gets things done just by asking,” he said. “Our customers tell us that they love it.”

In France, by the way, Siri is a guy.

Today we are bringing Siri to Japan, Cook announces.

10:07 am: Siri in Japan is part of iOS 5.1, an update being made available today.

10:08 am: More stats:

There are now 585,000 apps in the app store, which Apple announced on Monday has crossed 25 billion downloads (free and paid).

10:09 am: Talk has shifted to iCloud, which will now support movies in addition to music and TV shows. You can re-download movies you have purchased, and movies and TV shows will now be available in 1080p.

New Apple TV will now support 1080p. “I’ve been using one of these; the (quality) is off the charts.”

10:11 am: Eddy Cue comes out to demo the new Apple TV.

10:12 am: Tweaked interface. Also easier to get to third-party content, Cue said. Photo Stream also shows up automatically on new Apple TV, and in 1080p.

10:15 am: New Apple TV remains $99 and goes on sale next week, though you can order now.

“That brings us to iPad,” Cook said. “We think the iPad is the poster child of the post-PC (era).”

10:16 am: The set-up for the new iPad is classic Apple — momentum stats, glowing reviews, etc.

10:17 am: Goal of the iPad was to be the best device for some of the tasks people do every day, such as Web browsing and checking email.

“This is a tall order,” he said.

But, he said, Apple’s research seems to bear this out. Many iPad owners who have a PC and smartphone said iPad was their favorite Web browsing and email device. The iPad also won out over e-readers for book reading, and against game consoles and handheld game players for gaming, Cook said.

10:19 am: Cook notes that more than 100 tablets came to market last year, but they don’t offer the experience of the iPad. He shows Twitter running on a Samsung tablet, saying it is more like a blown-up phone application experience, while on the iPad it is a totally different experience.

Same thing with Yelp, he said.

“This is a key reason why momentum on iPad continues to build and the competitive tablets aren’t gaining traction,” Cook said.

Everyone keeps wondering who will come out with a product better than iPad 2.

“Stop wondering,” Cook said. “We are.”

A screen of new iPad shows in background. “It is amazing,” he said. “We are redefining the category that Apple created.”

10:22 am: Marketing chief Phil Schiller on stage to show off the new iPad.

10:23 am: First new feature is the Retina display, as expected. “Until you see it, you can’t understand how amazing this is,” Schiller said.

10:23 am: The giant wall display behind him, Schiller said, actually has fewer pixels than the new iPad.

The new iPad has 31 million pixels, with resolution of 2048 by 1536 pixels. That’s one million more pixels than an HD TV, Schiller said, and 264 pixels per inch.

“That is enough to call it a Retina display,” Schiller said. The iPhone has it when held at 10 inches from the face. The same is true of the new iPad, when held at 15 inches away or even somewhat closer.

10:27 am: The new iPad is powered by an A5X chip, with quad-core graphics needed for new high-resolution display. Apple says the older A5 chip had twice as much graphics power as Nvidia’s Tegra 3, while new A5X has four times the graphics power — again, according to Apple. “This is the best mobile display that has ever shipped,” he said.

10:28 am: New iPad has 5 megapixel camera with technology brought over from the iPhone 4S.

Schiller shows off some of the photos taken with the new iPad.

10:29 am: For more on the new iPad, check out this post from colleague Peter Kafka.

10:30 am: The iPad now has 1080p video recording, Schiller said.

10:31 am: The new camera also has image stabilization, Schiller said, showing a demo of that.

10:31 am: The new iPad also has voice dictation, thanks to a microphone button on the iPad’s virtual keyboard.

It supports U.S., British, and Australian English, along with French, German and Japanese.

10:33 am: New iPad will also support next-generation 4G LTE networks, such as the ones from Verizon and AT&T.

It will also support two other faster network technologies — HSPA+ and dual-channel HSDPA. That’s important, because LTE is rolling out slower globally than it is here in the U.S.

10:35 am: And we’re getting a demo of the real-world difference such high-speed networks can make when doing things like playing streaming video.

10:36 am: Working with AT&T and Verizon in the U.S., and Rogers, Telus and Bell in Canada on LTE, with other high-speed network support elsewhere in the world.

10:36 am: In the U.S., there will be two versions of iPad with LTE — one for AT&T’s LTE network, and the other for Verizon’s LTE network, because the two use different bands. It also can act as a hotspot, and can roam onto 3G networks worldwide.

10:37 am: Schiller in sales mode, recapping key new features.

He notes that a lot of these things sound like they would eat up a lot of batteries.

The iPad 2 boasted 10 hours for regular use and nine hours for 3G data use. And the new iPad has the same battery life.

10:39 am: It’s 9.4 millimeters thick and 1.4 pounds.

The new iPad will start, as the iPad 2 did, at $499 for 16 gigabytes, with $100 more for 32GB, and $200 more for 64GB. 4G wireless models cost an extra $130.

This is all the same as with iPad 2.

New iPad available March 16, with preorders starting today.

10:41 am: Schiller is talking about how software looks on the new display. Some stuff happens automatically, such as text size. But if developers do some work on their own, they can more fully take advantage of the new chip and display.

10:42 am: Schiller said they asked a few companies to try out the technology for a week and see what they could do. First demo is from Namco, a game designer known for Pac-Man and other titles.

They show a glimpse of a new flight-simulation game. The new iPad helps make the game more immersive, the company said, making it easier to lose yourself in the game with things like heat haze coming off of the plane’s engine.

Nice fly-by of the Golden Gate Bridge, too.

Game is Sky Gamblers: Air Supremacy, Namco said, which comes out later this month.

10:45 am: Next app demo is from Autocad creator Autodesk.

The company already has a line of programs, including SketchBook, for iOS.

Program being demoed is a new title, SketchBook Ink, a drawing app for line art.

10:47 am: Meanwhile, here are some of the things we are waiting to hear about: What will the data plan pricing be for new iPads? Will Sprint have an iPad to sell?

SketchBook Ink will be available in April, Autodesk said.

10:49 am: Third and final app demo from Epic Games, with president Mike Capps onstage.

It’s the latest version of the Infinity Blade saga: Dungeons.

The gamers in the crowd seem happy.

10:54 am: Apple’s productivity software, iWork, is being updated for the new iPad. So is iLife, with GarageBand players now able to jam with one another.

10:56 am: The iWork apps are available today in the App Store, for $9.99 apiece for new buyers. GarageBand remains $4.99 for new buyers, and both are free updates for those who have already bought them.

10:57 am: The iMovie app for iPad is also getting an update, including some new features, such as creating a faux movie trailer (or a real one, I suppose).

11:00 am: Apple is also bringing the third iLife app, iPhoto, to iPad. The iPhoto app joins the camera and photo library apps, Schiller said, for those who want to do more with their photos.

Among features are multitouch editing, professional quality effects, brushes, etc. Photos can be beamed among iOS devices. New way to share photos with friends — photo journals using iCloud.

11:03 am: Colleague Peter Kafka notes that while iTunes will now support re-downloading purchased movies, not all studios are behind the feature, so it will work with some flicks, but not others.

11:06 am: Apple demoing how multitouch can make photo editing more intuitive, such as changing the shadow or saturation in one part of a photo.

11:08 am: There are finger-powered brushes for doing all kinds of things, such as lightening a dark face in an otherwise well-exposed photo.

All the editing tools are nondestructive, meaning you can go back to the original.

There are a bunch of different effects, too, from different monochrome options to artsy and vintage ones.

Photo Journal creates a layout of photos, with those favorited or with a caption made larger. It looks a bit like how Facebook’s Timeline handles photos from an album.

You can throw in a map of the location, a date based on when photo was taken, even a weather icon that will use historical weather data to show what the temperature was like.

The resulting “journal” can then be stored on iCloud and shared as a Web link.

The new iPhoto works on both iPhone and iPad.

It will be $4.99 on App Store, starting today, Schiller said.

“We’ve now brought all of iLife to the iPad,” Schiller said. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you you can’t create on an iPad.”

11:14 am: And, cue video for new iPad.

11:14 am: So far, it’s just being called “the new iPad,” not iPad 3, iPad HD, or other names thrown about in recent days.

11:17 am: My recap:

Here’s what they’ve announced

New iPad with higher-res display, A5X processor, LTE support, improved 5 megapixel camera and 1080p recording. Same models and prices as iPad 2 was priced at. Separate LTE versions for AT&T and Verizon.

Apple TV with support for 1080p at $99.

And iPhoto for iOS, $4.99, starting today. Other iLife and iWork apps updated.

Apple also keeping iPad 2 in the lineup, starting at $399 for 16GB model, a $100 price chop.

11:21 am: Consensus seems to have nailed things pretty well, so far.

Cook now showing Apple’s TV ad for new iPad.

11:22 am: Cook, as Jobs did before him, wraps up by thanking Apple staff.

Again repeats his phrasing that leading Apple is the “privilege of a lifetime.”

Cook ends with a tantalizing tease.

“Across the year, you are going to see a lot more of this kind of innovation. We are just getting started,” he said.

11:23 am: And he exits, stage right.

RELATED POSTS:

• Verizon, AT&T Get to Duke It Out Over 4G iPad; Sprint, T-Mobile Stuck on Sidelines
• A Brief Hands-On With Apple’s New iPad (Video)
• Here’s What a Netflix-Cable Deal Could Look Like: The One That Netflix Just Announced With Apple
• Here’s the New iPad
• Post-PC Apple, By the Numbers
• HBO Deals Keep Fox, Universal Out of New iCloud Movie Service
• Apple Introduces LTE-Equipped iPad, Updates Apple TV
• What to Watch For at Apple’s Event, Besides That New iPad
• Complete Apple coverage

But Apple is still a consumer-focused personal computer company, and one trend I like to revisit is how Apple continues to grow its presence in business and professional settings.

Here’s a pretty good indicator: If you’re in the business of designing things like machines or buildings, there’s a chance you’re using software from Autodesk. Its latest mechanical design software, called Inventor Fusion, is used by mechanical engineers to design cars and planes and factory assembly lines. It’s heavy-duty software that’s currently available on Windows. A new trial version for the Mac has just recently come out is coming out soon.

While engineering software like this tended to be run on beefed-up Windows workstations during the last decade, the Mac has started to make serious inroads among engineers and designers, especially the younger ones, says Autodesk product manager Kevin Schneider. “The younger generation of engineers has grown up with computing expectations that are completely different,” he says. They used Macs at school, probably learned to edit photos and video in Photoshop and Final Cut Pro, so when they start using CAD and other software, naturally, they want it running on a Mac, too.

Autodesk makes four applications available on Apple’s App Store, and the results are pretty stunning. Those applications — Autocad LT, Autocad WS, Motion FX and Sketchbook Pro — have clocked up 2.2 million downloads via the App Store. That’s a lot for any software, and it’s a heck of a lot when you consider that these applications don’t come for free. Sketchbook Pro goes for $59.99; Autocad LT costs $899.99.

The number is even more impressive when you consider that Autodesk apps account for about 2 percent of total downloads on the App Store. Late last year, Apple announced that its store had broken the 100-million-download mark, generating 100,000 downloads a day, and making it the biggest software download site in the world.

It’s just another indication that the Mac is still making inroads against Windows in the workplace. A new Forrester Research survey of 3,350 IT decision makers finds that 46 percent of all firms in North America and Europe issued Macs to their employees in 2011; that figure was up by more than half since 2009.

According to sources at the company, Yahoo’s Carol Bartz is no longer CEO of Yahoo. CFO Tim Morse has been named interim CEO.

The situation around what is clearly an ouster is uncertain, but Bartz has had a very rocky tenure in her 32 months at the company.

[UPDATE: Yahoo confirmed the departure of Bartz in a press release outlining a reorganization.]

Bartz also sent a stunning email to staff, saying she had been ousted:

To all,

I am very sad to tell you that I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.

Carol

Several sources said the board, specifically Chairman Roy Bostock and Co-founder, as well as director Jerry Yang, acted today, informing Bartz by phone of the need to make a change.

What the next steps will be are unclear, but Yahoo needs desperately to explore a range of strategic changes to bring it back to its former glory.

But Wall Street liked the move, with Yahoo stock up more than six percent already in after-hours trading.

Sources said Morse held a call with Yahoo’s senior staff this afternoon, telling them Bartz was out and that a search for a permanent CEO will be commencing.

Why Yahoo’s board did not name a new leader immediately is curious and might indicate a larger deal around Yahoo is in the offing.

As I wrote earlier today, when the Internet giant announced on January 13, 2009, that it had hired longtime Silicon Valley tech veteran — who was well-regarded for her tenure at running Autodesk — to replace outgoing CEO and co-founder Yang and turn around the company, there was much hope.

At the time, she presented a take-no-prisoners image and was touted as someone with a reputation as a professional manager who could clean up the place.

Not so, as it has turned out.

While Bartz has streamlined certain areas and made some strong management hires, her performance has been decidedly bumpy and mostly downhill.

The share price has settled in at about $12.50 (just about where it was when Bartz took over), Yahoo’s recent financial results have been weak, its key advertising business is struggling, its attrition rate among engineers and others is startlingly high and its product innovation cycle seems stopped up.

Add to that: Weak relationships with key Asian partners, a pricey but failed marketing effort and a proclivity for embarrassing verbal gaffes by Bartz.

Still, given that Yahoo’s Internet traffic, top media sites and brand remain huge, the going-sideways situation has again caused some investors — including powerful private equity firms and other monied investors — to pull out their spreadsheets about a variety of scenarios related to Yahoo.

The players who have sniffed around of late are powerful, sources said, including Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin and Providence Equity Partners, among others. Also in the Wall Street rumor mill recently are large companies: AT&T, News Corp. and Verizon.

All the schemes are different — ranging from taking it private to making a large investment to splitting it into parts — although they all seem to require cooperation with Yahoo to get done.

And while there is no serious effort afoot as yet, there have been increasing signs of late that Yahoo’s board is ready to listen to any serious offers, said multiple sources, especially as the company has continued to drift under the leadership of Bartz.

While board chairman Bostock has publicly backed Bartz — after all, he was her biggest champion at the time of her hiring — multiple sources said he had started to become more involved at looking at the management issues at the company and its challenges.

Yang — still a key figure at Yahoo — has also become more active, said sources, and tensions between him and Bartz have increased over the last few months.

The increasing pressure on the directors of the company from its major shareholders to act has gained in recent months, said sources.

Thus, Bartz is gone and the next chapter in Yahoo’s corporate drama begins.

[Photo credit: Asa Mathat for All Things Digital]

Related posts

• As Yahoo Continues to Wobble, Investors (And Board) Eye Options
• Exclusive: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Tim Morse Named Interim CEO
• Carol Bartz’s Last F%*& You — Now Aimed at Yahoo Board
• Yahoo’s Statement on Bartz Ouster
• Wall Street Likes Bartz’s Firing — Yahoo Stock Spikes on News
• My Picks for Yahoo’s Next CEO — Maybe Snoop Dogg, Ya Digg?

Today Autodesk will announce that it’s AutoCAD software is available for Google’s Android smartphone and tablet platform. The formal announcement will come after the close of the market today.

I talked last week with Amar Hanspal, Senior Vice President, Platform Solutions and Emerging Business at Autodesk and he told me that there’s a growing demand for AutoCAD users–whether they’re architects or construction managers at a job site, or just someone who spends a lot of time away from their desk–to have access to their CAD files from a mobile device. The answer was AutoCAD WS, which is essentially a mini version of AutoCAD, released first for Apple’s iOS devices.

Once released for the iOS, Autodesk saw a million downloads and 8 million sessions. A browser-based version of AutoCAD WS followed. “We clearly saw the need we had been hearing about,” Hanspal said. Moving to Android, which has a much bigger presence in emerging companies, is another big step in that access-anywhere direction.

“When the iPad and iPhone became more of a trusted environment, we felt this was a good platform from which to enable access,” he told me. AutoCAD WS doesn’t support all the commands of AutoCAD, but it is built with collaboration and basic edits in mind. “After we got the iPhone version out, one of the big things our customers asked for was support for Android. We think this should be very successful because in certain geographies there’s a lot of anticipation around it.”

Hanspal says it will run not only on Android phones, but also on tablet devices like the Samsung Galaxy and the Motorola Xoom. That wasn’t easy, he said, because of the variations in the Android platforms across different devices and manufacturers. “We’ve had to test it across something like 15 different devices and tweak it a little to run on them all,” he said. “That’s why it took us a little longer than we would have liked to get it done. The complicated part of developing for Android is not developing itself. It’s the testing.”

AutoCAD users will be able to view anything they’ve created on that software, and you’ll be able to zoom in on details. You can also make basic edits and modifications. Say you’re at a job site and realize a pillar needs to be moved a little. The app lets you mark it up or add additional bits, then send the changes to the original file. The software will be available later this month and it will be free.

Software companies including Microsoft Corp. and Autodesk Inc. have seen unit sales jump since lowering prices to lure users away from pirated copies, executives said in interviews.

For instance, Autodesk, which makes AutoCAD and other design software, saw its number of licenses in China more than double to an estimated 300,000 as of July after it slashed local software prices last year, said Patrick Williams, Autodesk’s senior vice president for the Asia-Pacific region.

The U.S. company’s prices in China are now about half the level in the U.S., compared with about 20 percent to 30 percent lower before last year’s reduction. Autodesk sells its flagship AutoCAD 2011 software on its U.S. website starting at $3,975.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

With all the noisy swirl around Yahoo of late–from its executive turmoil to its flat growth to its dashed partnerships in Asia to its brash CEO–its board has been unusually quiet of late.

Comatose, some might say.

In fact, many do say exactly that, pointing to the trauma of their disastrous performance when they fended off a hostile takeover attempt by Microsoft (MSFT) for above $30 a share as the cause.

Since then, the stock price of Yahoo (YHOO) has been mired in the low teens.

That is, until yesterday, when even more rumors of new plots emerged in the media, with private equity firms, media companies, Web rivals, big shareholders, Wall Street and others all machinating about trying to grab all or some of the Internet giant.

Now, it will be interesting to see if its directors will shake themselves out of their typical comfort zone of inactivity to actually do their job.

Which, as former GE (GE) star exec Jack Welch–in a recent smackdown of a spate of controversial moves by the Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) board–said in a recent interview, is to “pick the CEO, help them shape strategy, make them feel good about themselves, and, if the CEO isn’t doing a good job, to ‘get them the hell out of there.’”

According to sources close to the situation, the Yahoo directors are in a quandary, even as they are on the receiving end of a flood of suggestions and demands from big investors, ranging from merging with AOL (AOL) to aligning with News Corp. (NWS) to selling off the company’s lucrative Asian assets to replacing CEO Carol Bartz.

You get the idea.

But that might not happen as quickly as some want. Sources said that while the eight-person board has some strong personalities on it, there is no one who has emerged as a powerful leader, aside from Bartz.

Yahoo has recently tried to attract two execs who might be able to go toe-to-toe with her–OpenTable (OPEN) CEO Jeff Jordan and Akamai (AKAM) President David Kenny–but was turned down by both.

Neither apparently wanted the headache of dealing with Yahoo’s struggles.

The same goes for some on Yahoo’s board.

Said one person who had spoken to a few board members recently: “Each of them tells me, ‘I’m only one person and I can’t act alone.’”

Indeed not, which is why you have a board. Stone soup, people!

In any case, it is high time to put the spotlight on the Yahoo directors, which I have done in the past in other crisis moments.

Here’s a rundown, with their photos from Yahoo’s shareholder Web site, along with some BoomTown analysis:

Carol Bartz, CEO:

We all know her, the tough-talking longtime Silicon Valley software exec who was brought in to clean up Dodge in the wake of the rocky tenure of former CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang. She is under pressure here for not doing that well enough, of course, despite a very, very big compensation package.

Still, with an aggressive personality and a wimpish board, she might be able to stave off any challenges to her power.

Roy Bostock, Chairman:

The longtime airline board member and advertising exec has been at the top of the Yahoo board since 2008 and on it since 2003.

Which is why I called for his resignation after Yang and former Yahoo President Sue Decker gracefully stepped down, after their management was called into question.

Bostock was right there with them, making all those decisions, which turned out to be disastrous in hindsight. Still, he does not seem to be much for the honorably-falling-on-your-sword thing.

In fact, sources said he has been making the rounds of investors recently trying to gauge the mood. Memo to Roy: It’s bad.

Eric Hippeau

Now the CEO of the Huffington Post, the longtime Web investor and publisher has a lot of online experience and should be one of the leaders on the Yahoo board. Hippeau has certainly been a director long enough to be one–since 1996, as an early investor in the company.

He’s also known as a super-nice guy in Internet circles, which means he is no head-smacker. Too bad.

One idea floated to me by an investor: Yahoo could buy the upstart online media darling and install him as CEO. Pretty please, because the entrance of the fab stylings of Arianna Huffington into this mess would send me into the stratosphere of reporting nirvana.

Vyomesh Joshi

Also a very endearing dude, the top HP exec was one of those on the short list for CEO of the tech giant recently. He runs its gigantically profitable printing and imaging business.

He’s been a Yahoo director since 2005 and should be a key decision maker, since he is an experienced operator. He’s not been, unfortunately.

Arthur Kern

Also a lifer, also having been on the Yahoo board since 1996, the investor and radio exec has also worked in marketing at Digitas.

Among the board members, he seems to be the quietest of the bunch, so I am not sure what to say about him except that he has very white teeth.

Gary Wilson

Another investor–in private equity, he has been on the board of airline companies (what is with this plane stuff on the Yahoo board?), as well as a top financial exec at Disney (DIS) and Marriott (MAR).

Again, a nice résumé, and he should be a leader. He was definitely more involved in the Microsoft situation than others.

Since then? Meh.

Sue James

The accountant. Retired from Ernst & Young. Used to work for Bartz, as lead partner for audit work for Autodesk (ADSK). Joined the Yahoo board early this year.

Probably just figuring out that this whole thing might not be adding up.

Patti Hart

Also new, since June. Worked in the digital video business, and is now the CEO of a “global provider of electronic game equipment and systems products.”

Say what?

Okay, I will go with it, as I am liking that Bartz has brought on two women to the board, which has mostly been stacked full with men.

Brad Smith

The president and CEO of Intuit (INTU), the financial management software powerhouse, also joined in June. This guy should be able to shake the trees, right?

But he is probably still trying to learn everyone’s name. Brad, not to put too much pressure, but everyone is counting on you.

Jerry Yang

Last, but certainly not least, the man who is ultimately the power player here.

The Internet pioneer and industry legend checked out of Yahoo for a bit after he stepped down in early 2009–time to tee off!

But many sources said he has been back at Yahoo for a while–glad-handing advertisers, meeting with entrepreneurs, sussing out trends, piping up in strategy meetings and doing the behind-the-scenes thing that he does so well.

Reports vary on how much he likes Bartz–he expresses support for her to some, but seems to have soured on her to others.

Who knows with the endearingly prickly Yang, whom I have been covering for a dog’s age and who should return my emails once in a while, like in old times when I stalked him.

Dinner is optional, but I will pay this time (see video below of our last semi-enjoyable meal).

Still, here is what I know for sure: Yahoo is Yang’s creation and legacy, and he’s the one who has to make sure that it survives and thrives.

For all the uncertainty surrounding Yahoo once again, that much is true.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101014/meet-the-yahoo-board-something-old-something-new-but-will-they-do-something/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20100614/outcasts-wennmachers-joins-andreessen-horowitz-as-partner/ http://allthingsd.com/20100614/outcasts-wennmachers-joins-andreessen-horowitz-as-partner/#comments Tue, 15 Jun 2010 02:20:13 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=29474

Margit Wennmachers (pictured here), one of Silicon Valley’s leading public relations and communications execs, is joining Andreessen Horowitz as a partner.

Wennmachers, 45, co-founded OutCast Communications, whose clients include Yahoo (YHOO), Facebook and Andreessen Horowitz.

The move will make her one of a handful of women at high-profile venture outfits.

At Andreessen Horowitz, she’ll focus on bringing marketing expertise to the firm and its portfolio companies, starting in September.

“For me, it’s a chance to build a top-notch VC firm and work with talented entrepreneurs, so what’s not to like?” wrote Wennmachers in an email to BoomTown (who got off a horse in Wyoming to write this).

Andreessen Horowitz has made a big splash since it was created a year ago with $300 million in funding. Its portfolio of high-profile companies includes Skype, RockMelt and Zynga.

Wennmachers got to know both Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz when they hired OutCast to launch their firm last year. Andreessen Horowitz will continue to be an OutCast client.

OutCast was founded 13 years ago by Wennmachers and Caryn Marooney. It was bought by Next Fifteen Communications in 2005, but has been operated independently ever since and will continue to be.

In fact, Marooney will continue to run OutCast, which has more than 80 employees in San Francisco and New York.

Its clients reflect a breadth of Web and other companies–big and small, public and private–also including AdMob, Aliph, Amazon (AMZN), Autodesk (ADSK), Bloom, VMware (VMW), salesforce.com (CRM), Code Advisors, Cisco (CSCO), Zimbra and Netflix (NFLX).

“OutCast is the best in the business. Between VMware, salesforce.com and Facebook, they have an outstanding track record of working with the best companies and making them more valuable,” said Andreessen. “We are thrilled that one of the founders has decided to join our firm. Margit’s experience in building brands will be a big asset to Andreessen Horowitz and our portfolio.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100614/outcasts-wennmachers-joins-andreessen-horowitz-as-partner/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100104/exclusive-vmware-likely-to-buy-zimbra-from-yahoo/ http://allthingsd.com/20100104/exclusive-vmware-likely-to-buy-zimbra-from-yahoo/#comments Mon, 04 Jan 2010 19:22:09 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=22506

Yahoo is close to selling its Zimbra unit to VMware, according to several sources close to the situation.

Sources said the deal could be announced soon, but the price for the open-source email unit was still unclear.

But the price, sources said, is much lower than what Zimbra fetched when Yahoo bought the Silicon Valley start-up in late 2007 for $350 million.

Yahoo has been trying to sell Zimbra for some months now, but it had not attracted enough substantive bidders. According to one source, Yahoo (YHOO) CEO then approached VMware (VMW) CEO Paul Maritz, whom she knows well from their years as tech execs.

Bartz ran Autodesk (ADSK) for many years and Maritz was a longtime top exec at Microsoft (MSFT).

One source noted that the reason that VMware was interested in nabbing Zimbra was that its execs want to
expand “up the stack” from the software company’s position in virtualization.

BoomTown reported in late September that Zimbra was for sale by Yahoo, which has been targeting assets for “de-acquisition” that are not central to the strategies of its new management.

Late last year when announcing its new $100 million marketing campaign, Bartz said at a media briefing: “Most of our assets are very core to the company. Those that aren’t, where it makes sense we will sell and where it makes sense we will shut down.”

Yahoo has done that with several properties, such its JumpCut video editing service.

But Zimbra, as well as its small business and jobs sites have been on the block.

The sale of Zimbra will present a possible complication, since its innovative technology has been integrated–although not as extensively as some have felt it should be–into Yahoo’s popular email offering. But the Yahoo could easily license what it needs as part of the deal with VMware.

But, sources said, Yahoo is now not interested in running Zimbra’s white-label, open-source email commercial product, which serves the university and ISP markets. There, its main rival has been Google (GOOG).

Yahoo declined to comment and emails sent to VMware have gone unanswered as yet, but source expect an announcement within two weeks.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100104/exclusive-vmware-likely-to-buy-zimbra-from-yahoo/feed/ 9 http://allthingsd.com/20091231/the-year-in-wisecracks/ http://allthingsd.com/20091231/the-year-in-wisecracks/#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:45:01 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=31302

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091231/the-year-in-wisecracks/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091208/thanks-tiger-love-yahoo/ http://allthingsd.com/20091208/thanks-tiger-love-yahoo/#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:59:06 +0000 Andrew LaVallee http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=18856 Tiger Woods may be losing fans in some quarters, but he has one in Carol Bartz, Yahoo’s (YHOO) chief executive.

“God bless Tiger,” she said during an investors conference Tuesday, for the “huge” uptick in Web traffic he has generated over the past week.

News, photos and other content about the pro golfer, whose personal life has become tabloid fodder since his car accident and cryptic apologies, are contributing to Yahoo’s sports section, as well as news, gossip and the front page, Ms. Bartz said. When asked if Mr. Woods would help the Internet company make the quarter, she said, “Oh, absolutely,” and added that he’s fueling more visits than Michael Jackson’s death.

The former Autodesk (ADSK) CEO teased the lunchtime audience at UBS’s (UBS AG) media summit after a joke or two (one about low-quality “Russian bride” online ads). When she didn’t get the intended reaction, she told them she’s used to CAD conferences and talking to engineers. She said, “You guys are supposed to be interesting!”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091208/thanks-tiger-love-yahoo/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090620/whose-yahoo/ http://allthingsd.com/20090620/whose-yahoo/#comments Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:47:27 +0000 Mark Veverka http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=12841 After her two predecessors failed in recent years to counter Google’s (GOOG) conquest of Yahoo!’s (YHOO) once-dominant position in Internet search, or to win over investors, new CEO Bartz brings strong software-engineering and management skills to the job. At her previous post atop Autodesk (ADSK), she remade the business, sharply boosting margins, earnings and revenues and increasing the share price nearly tenfold.

Bartz, 60, is a sharp operator with a sharp tongue. She’s famous for dropping the f-word during conference calls with analysts and investors. (She brought down the house at a recent conference with her opening: “Do you want me to say something naughty now?”) More important, however, her first major initiatives at Yahoo! suggest where she’s headed.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090620/whose-yahoo/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090331/autodesk-shrs-jump-as-ubs-upgrades-to-neutral/ http://allthingsd.com/20090331/autodesk-shrs-jump-as-ubs-upgrades-to-neutral/#comments Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:40:04 +0000 Eric Savitz http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=10000 Autodesk (ADSK) shares are trading higher this morning after UBS analyst Heather Bellini upped her rating on the design software company to Neutral from Sell, increasing her price target to $16 from $8.

Bellini said the company analyst meeting on Thursday could prove to be a catalyst for the stock. “We expect management to highlight that while sales have yet to stabilize they are declining at a decelerating rate,” she writes, adding that the April quarter sales guidance of $400 million to $440 million looks “reasonable that as the slope of the decline in demand becomes less steep, management’s predictive value is higher.” She says that without an upcoming revenue miss, there’s not much reason for the stock to trader lower.

Read the rest of this post

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090331/autodesk-shrs-jump-as-ubs-upgrades-to-neutral/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090224/how-it-feels-to-be-fired-carol-bartz-style-amazing/ http://allthingsd.com/20090224/how-it-feels-to-be-fired-carol-bartz-style-amazing/#comments Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:22:13 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=10240

A few weeks ago, BoomTown got a rather compelling email from Marion Vermazen, who once worked at Sun Microsystems with new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.

Sun (JAVA) was one of the many companies where Bartz was an exec, before heading Autodesk (ADSK) and, now, Yahoo (YHOO)–and where Bartz actually fired Vermazen.

Her take on the experience?

“Amazing,” said Vermazen, whose last name was Brown at the time, given how Bartz handled it herself–driving 30 minutes to Vermazen’s office–in a very straightforward way that made the pain of the firing easier.

In other words, a kinder, classier Donald Trump “Apprentice” style, but without the cameras and bad hair.

It’s instructive, given that Bartz is likely to have to give several big Yahoo execs the heave-ho in the days ahead as she unveils her new management structure soon.

(By the way, though big change is a-coming, Yahoo sources said that Bartz will not be making a noisy announcement about her reorganization. Instead, she apparently will just do it–letting the internal memos leak, presumably–and move on to “putting some points on the board” before talking publicly.)

In any case, here’s Vermazen’s email, which she said I could post. She sent it to me after some pieces I did about Bartz’s take-charge style (also, you can see the now-retired Vermazen’s blog here):

This all sounds very familiar. 20+ years ago I was in the service organization at Sun when Bartz took over. In a staff meeting of the Service directors, she said that if we didn’t get our act together we’d be gone. I was in way over my head and a couple of weeks later she came to my office for a meeting with me and told me that I was being replaced. She said they weren’t going to take me out and shoot me, but that I would no longer be managing the software support group. I have enormous respect for her that she told me this to my face in my office. Most executives would have had HR do it or whatever. She is an amazing person.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090224/how-it-feels-to-be-fired-carol-bartz-style-amazing/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090220/hurricane-carol-bartz-could-announce-major-yahoo-management-reorg-next-week/ http://allthingsd.com/20090220/hurricane-carol-bartz-could-announce-major-yahoo-management-reorg-next-week/#comments Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:39:21 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=10094

Several sources inside and outside Yahoo told BoomTown that new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz could be ready to announce a major reorganization of its management structure as early as next week, most likely on Wednesday.

While that shift could be pushed out a week or two or rolled out in pieces, Yahoo (YHOO) execs are nervously awaiting the moves by Bartz to put a new regime in place in order to more easily power through a massive reset of the troubled company.

Interestingly, many top execs are very much in the dark about what Bartz will do since she manages very close to the vest, mostly moving around Yahoo with only her longtime executive assistant in tow.

Thankfully, she also loves to write detailed memos to the staff, and she signaled the “big week” ahead in one Boomtown just obtained (see here) that was sent out today.

Those are code words for reorg, according to many sources I spoke to, coming after Bartz has spent a lot of time visiting many parts of Yahoo and conducting a whirlwind of meetings with execs.

I will be posting my Heidi-Klum-you’re-in-and-out predictions of the fate of various execs later this weekend.

But broadly, most expect Bartz to severely roll back a variety of previous reorganizations done by former CEO Jerry Yang and former President Sue Decker.

That will mean many top execs will likely be quite out–already, Decker’s chief of staff, Jeff McCombs, has quietly departed the company, several sources said–while others will be elevated.

Most sources I spoke to who have interfaced with Bartz think she will likely go with a more traditional and more accountable structure like the one she employed while rehauling Autodesk (ADSK), the computer-aided design software company she once headed, rather than the matrix-tangled Yahoo.

A change in how Yahoo makes media, which I wrote about today and was approved by Bartz, is a classic globally-centered development organization. (By the way, a significant reorg of the media organization, headed by Jeff Dossett, is also set for next week, said sources.)

Thus, most expect Bartz to do a C-level-style set-up, with execs like a COO, CTO and a new, more powerful CMO (who will also head PR), all reporting to her.

In addition, several suggested she might also junk a recent reorg that split the world into four regions. Instead, one exec could head the U.S., where most of Yahoo’s current business is, and one head international efforts.

Whatever happens, it’s clear that “Hurricane Carol”–a nickname she has been given by some employees in admiration–is getting ready to blow right through Yahoo.

Batten down the hatches–more to come…

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090220/hurricane-carol-bartz-could-announce-major-yahoo-management-reorg-next-week/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090210/bartz-holds-first-exec-offsite-as-the-yahoos-turn-and-twist-in-the-wind/ http://allthingsd.com/20090210/bartz-holds-first-exec-offsite-as-the-yahoos-turn-and-twist-in-the-wind/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2009 01:27:05 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=9585

Today, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz has convened a two-day offsite of its managers, to bring them all together to talk about the company.

Aside from a colorful all-hands meeting she held with the whole company, the gathering is Bartz’s first major one of its top execs, sources said, and is being held on Yahoo’s campus in Sunnyvale.

Sources said they believe Bartz has prepared an organizational structure that she will unveil soon, but has not told Yahoo’s senior staff what will be shifted, what will be consolidated and what will perhaps be cut.

Her close-to-the-vest style so far, especially about her reorganization, is what has Yahoo (YHOO) execs on edge, given it is clear to those who have spoken to her that change is surely coming.

Several people inside and outside the company who have spoken with her said she has indicated that Yahoo is still overstaffed and needs to get leaner and meaner, while others said she has expressed concern about the complex decision-making process.

Today’s offsite with top staff is a shift from Bartz’s getting-to-know-’Hoo efforts since she got to Yahoo a month ago, which have largely been her meeting execs one-on-one or dropping into various staff meetings and, from all reports I have gotten so far, asking very pointed questions.

So far, it has been Bartz flying solo, with no entourage or staff, except for her executive assistant, Judy Flores, who came with Bartz from Autodesk.

“Wherever Carol goes, Judy goes,” said one exec. “But that’s it.”

And as she goes, Bartz has let loose with a lot of questions.

“She is asking the right ones, although the tone is much more tough than employees are used to,” said one Yahoo exec.

That’s the polite version, of course, with some at Yahoo reeling from Bartz’s laser-gun queries and some thrilled that those kinds of tough questions are finally being asked out loud.

“She doesn’t seem to know the current state of the Internet business that well, but she does know how to whip a company into shape,” said another exec. “It can be a little disconcerting for those Web heads at the company to get that kind of scrutiny.”

At a recent smaller meeting of top execs, for example, Bartz went around the table and asked what each did, making comments as it went on.

Two execs were a “two-in-one box,” meaning they did the same thing, to her mind. And she had to get well around the room until she could find someone who made some dough. “Finally, revenue,” Bartz reportedly joked.

Bartz has already displayed that no-holds-barred style in public, tsk-tsking those who give Yahoo unsolicited advice and offering bounties for those employees who leak info.

(BoomTown’s personal favorite from the Bartz repertoire so far: “This is not a company that needs to be pulled apart and left for the chickens.”)

Pulling apart Yahoo internally and remaking it is another story. That’s why the company is practically humming with gossip about what will happen to a variety of execs–especially those close to the former regime of co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker.

More on the possible management shifts later…

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090210/bartz-holds-first-exec-offsite-as-the-yahoos-turn-and-twist-in-the-wind/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20090115/autodesk-issues-fy-q4-warning-cutting-750-jobs/ http://allthingsd.com/20090115/autodesk-issues-fy-q4-warning-cutting-750-jobs/#comments Thu, 15 Jan 2009 13:08:13 +0000 Eric Savitz http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=7667 Autodesk (ADSK) this morning joined the parade of misery, warning that Q4 results would be short of expectations, and unveiling a restructuring plan that will result in the loss of 750 jobs.

The company now sees revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter ending January of $475 million to $500 million, down from previous guidance of $525 million to $550 million. The company expects a GAAP loss of 5-12 cents a share, with a non-GAAP profit of 18-24 cents. Previous guidance had been for non-GAAP EPS of 28-34 cents.

CEO Carl Bass said in a statement that “global economic conditions continue to impact our end-user demand.”

Read the rest of this post

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090115/autodesk-issues-fy-q4-warning-cutting-750-jobs/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090114/yahoos-decker-resigned-with-class-now-chairman-bostock-should-exit-stage-right-too/ http://allthingsd.com/20090114/yahoos-decker-resigned-with-class-now-chairman-bostock-should-exit-stage-right-too/#comments Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:28:43 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=8564 Perhaps it was no surprise, given that she wanted to be Yahoo CEO and did not get the job.

But it took a lot of guts for Yahoo President Sue Decker (pictured here) to resign immediately yesterday and without the usual polite waiting period that happens in most major corporate management shifts.

I am guessing Decker clearly knew that investor ire over her leadership and that of her boss, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, had made the duo radioactive. Yang had already said goodbye in November and now it was her turn.

It was an important move for Yahoo (YHOO), since questions of Decker’s continued presence would have definitely dragged down any excitement to be had about the announcement of new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.

So, Decker–who has always been a clear-thinking analytical type more than a gut executive–made both the logical and emotional decision to leave the company she has worked at for nine years.

And, more importantly, to leave Bartz with the cleanest slate she possibly could.

Whatever you think of Decker’s leadership, it was a class move on her part and one that BoomTown admires, especially since it was probably very hard for such a rigorous person to walk away without leaving behind a success.

It would be nice, then, if the man who was also just as–if not much more–responsible for the disaster that has been Yahoo for too long would take a clue from Decker and Yang and head out too.

That would be Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock (pictured here), the leader who has largely escaped blame that has been massively heaped on both Yang and Decker.

But it was Bostock who was part of the supposed revival of Yahoo, who was a key player in the disastrous negotiations with Microsoft (MSFT) over its takeover attempt and who was has been pulling many of the key strings the entire time.

Thus, he needs to go too, because at this point, Yahoo has to declare that accountability matters and that it starts at the tippy-top.

Major investors certainly would not mind. “Everything he has promised has gone the other way,” said one about his encounters with Bostock. “I just don’t believe him anymore.”

Said a former Yahoo exec, echoing the sentiment of many I have talked to over the past weeks: “Jerry and Sue should be the ones to take responsibility for Yahoo’s decline, but Roy was right next to them all the way.”

So, while many could aim at Yang and Decker (or perhaps even former CEO Terry Semel) or the distraction of the Microsoft bid earlier in 2008 or now, the weakness in the economy for Yahoo’s woes, since he has been chairman, Bostock is just as responsible as anyone at at the top of Yahoo.

Yahoo shares have been cut in half since he took over as chairman a year ago, back to where they were when he joined the board in 2003.

You could also point to Yahoo’s morale crisis or the exodus of key talent or the declines in its key businesses or the company’s general lack of momentum as very solid reasons for kicking Bostock to the curb for taking so long to do anything about it.

BoomTown will not even bring up the $31 per share offer from Microsoft that Yahoo spurned, although Bostock never seems to tire of highhandedly laying all the blame for the mess at Microsoft’s feet alone.

While the departure of Bostock would probably be enough, I would say a lot of the longtime members of the board should also probably contemplate moving on, to make way for some fresh eyes on the board and to free Bartz to do what she wants without their meddling.

Given that several directors also wanted the CEO job, according to sources, the board will likely continue to be more bothersome than helpful.

While not the boldest pick by this largely ineffectual and slow-moving board, it has finally made a definitive move by picking Bartz and should now get well out of the way.

Because, unlike the Yahoo directors, Bartz cannot really be judged yet, and one must give her the benefit of the doubt and let her try to fix Yahoo in her own way.

She certainly has the experience as a seasoned tech veteran, from 14 years at Autodesk (ADSK), and she also has the goodwill of Silicon Valley.

Left to hire her own team and take advantage of the massive amount of talent that still miraculously exists at Yahoo, Bartz has every chance of reviving a company ripe with great assets.

That is, if Bostock–who led the search to hire her–would give her a truly great gift of the cleanest slate possible for Yahoo, by bidding her farewell and godspeed as he heads out the door.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090114/yahoos-decker-resigned-with-class-now-chairman-bostock-should-exit-stage-right-too/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20090114/the-past-is-prologue-carol-bartz-and-autodesk-in-1992yahoo-now/ http://allthingsd.com/20090114/the-past-is-prologue-carol-bartz-and-autodesk-in-1992yahoo-now/#comments Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:30:43 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=8565

Here is a story, in full, by the always terrific G. Pascal Zachary, which appeared in The Wall Street Journal in 1992, about the newly hired CEO, Carol Bartz, and the “theocracy of hackers” at then-wacky Autodesk.

Three guesses about who eventually won that battle, and the first two don’t count.

Fast-forward to 2008, with Bartz now taking up the difficult reins of Yahoo (YHOO), which is a little more behaved than Autodesk (ADSK) was then, but still a handful.

Here’s one quote from the story about Autodesk that could read as if it were in former exec Brad Garlinghouse’s infamous “Peanut Butter Manifesto” about Yahoo:

“Over time, Autodesk became almost unmanageable. Why? Autodesk was run very democratically. People met. They discussed things. Many flowers bloomed. But nobody harvested.”

(Although, to be fair, Yahoo co-founder and outgoing CEO Jerry Yang is no where near as odd as Autodesk founder John Walker.)

But my favorite quote from Bartz in the piece, and the most pertinent to Yahoo today, as it still sounds like her motto, after listening to her first outing as Yahoo CEO yesterday:

“I am not coming to Autodesk as a dictator. But I am not a consensus manager in the extreme. I do not believe the best decision is a group grope.”

Oh dear, because that has been Yahoo’s favorite management style–until now.

Here’s the full–and very long–piece:

SAUSALITO, Calif.–When Carol Bartz was named the new chairman and chief executive of Autodesk Inc. last month, the talk focused on her being the first woman outsider ever brought in to run a major high-tech company. But that obscured the larger issue: Whether an unruly clique of programmers at one of America’s most strangely run big companies will make her its latest managerial victim.

Autodesk? If the name barely registers, you’re not alone–even though, remarkably, the London Business School last year calculated that Autodesk was by one measure the most profitable company of the 1980s, based on the school’s survey of 2,000 public companies world-wide.

Though the world’s sixth largest PC software company, Autodesk is hardly a household name for a couple of reasons. One is that it dominates a niche: software that allows relatively inexpensive personal computers to produce powerful models for engineers, architects and other professional designers.

The other reason is Autodesk’s founding genius, John Walker, a reclusive programmer who doesn’t allow the company to distribute his picture or publish it in its annual report. In a rare interview granted for this article, a prickly Mr. Walker insisted that a reporter sit in front of a video camera, declared that Autodesk claimed a copyright on the ensuing discussion and debated the meaning of each question.

Just as Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software supplier, is an extension of the personality of William Gates III, Autodesk is largely a creature of Mr. Walker. Like Mr. Gates, Mr. Walker is superb at identifying computer trends and spreading his vision to the troops. But unlike Mr. Gates, Mr. Walker, 42, never really wanted to run his company. “I’m an engineer, I’m a programmer, I’m a technologist,” he says. “I have no interest in running a large U.S. public company, and I never have. It was a means to an end to accomplish the technological work I wished to achieve.”

He relinquished the top spot in 1986 to Alvar Green, formerly Autodesk’s chief financial officer, to return to programming. But the real power still rested with Mr. Walker, Autodesk’s biggest shareholder, and an elite group of programmers called “Core,” who had either helped Mr. Walker found the company in 1982 or led its most important projects.

Core members are contentious, eccentric free-thinkers who have had a way of devouring professional managers. They have often attacked each other and company executives, usually by sending “flame mail”–biting electronic letters. The outbursts sometimes have led to changes, and sometimes brought work to a halt. “The whole company is a theocracy of hackers,” says Charles M. Foundyller, president of Daratech Inc., a market research firm in Cambridge, Mass.

A year ago, Mr. Walker issued the ultimate in flame mail, a 44-page letter brutally attacking Mr. Green for allegedly trying to bolster short-term profits by neglecting investment in new products and marketing. Mr. Green later decided to resign, but stayed on until the selection of Ms. Bartz, 43, who formerly ran worldwide field operations for Sun Microsystems Inc.

She is regarded as a canny pick, particularly because she has experience managing rapid growth. She’s also a tough manager who got her first big promotion at Sun when she convinced top management that she could do a better job than her boss, who was on vacation. “I am not coming to Autodesk as a dictator,” she says. “But I am not a consensus manager in the extreme. I do not believe the best decision is a group grope.”

That, however, is largely how Autodesk has been managed until now. It was founded by Mr. Walker and a dozen programmer pals just as International Business Machines Corp. revolutionized the computer industry with its original PC. Mr. Walker saw Autodesk as a diversified supplier of PC software with a can’t-miss future. “We should consider ourselves extremely lucky to be in this business at this time in history,” Mr. Walker wrote in 1982, egging on his co-founders. “I cannot imagine any scenario other than the total collapse of society in which the sales of microcomputer application software will not grow by a factor of 10 in the next five years.”

Actually, Autodesk’s own sales did better than that, jumping nearly tenfold to $9.8 million in the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 1985, only its second full year of operation. Sales reached $100 million, another factor of 10, four years later; for the year ended Jan. 31, it earned $57.8 million on revenues of $284.9 million.

Mr. Walker didn’t invent the program that drove all this phenomenal success. Instead, Autodesk’s hit product proved to be a computer-aided-design (CAD) program that Mr. Walker purchased from an outside programmer named Michael Riddle. The program, which became AutoCad, did for designers of buildings, interiors and machines what VisiCalc’s spreadsheet did for the accountant: It made the personal computer an essential tool, where once pencil and paper reigned.

Mr. Walker quickly grasped the promise of AutoCad when Mr. Riddle gave him a presentation in 1982. “When I showed him the program, he was quiet for 45 minutes. It was the first time he’s ever been quiet with me,” says Mr. Riddle. Then, “he says, ‘You’ve got a fortune here.’” Before long, Autodesk dropped virtually all of its other work to concentrate on AutoCad. The program, which now sells for about $3,500, was a runaway success, cutting deeply into the sales of computer companies that blended software and hardware into systems that might cost 10 times the price of a PC with AutoCad, and yet afford only somewhat better performance.

While established CAD leaders ignored the threat from the PC, Autodesk began to entrench itself with customers. The company signed up dealers by the hundreds; many were architects and draftsmen themselves who sold it to their colleagues. And Mr. Walker created an AutoCad language so that consultants or customers could take the program and modify it to handle specific tasks. Today, thousands of AutoCad applications exist.

Mr. Walker gave Mr. Riddle an extraordinarily generous royalty agreement that eventually amounted to more than $10 million. The payment may be a record for an outside programmer in the PC business, but Mr. Walker has always operated by a different set of rules. He doesn’t care a whit about office decorum or hierarchy, so Autodesk was always casual and libertarian, even by techie standards.

“I realized this was a different place when at my first staff meeting, I was licked by a dog,” says one manager. But within this unstructured setting, Mr. Walker for the first four years ruled by charisma, relentless memo writing and sheer force of will.

Mr. Walker has unusual interests, which he imposed on Autodesk. When he grew intrigued with outer space, Autodesk invested in a company that salvages used fuel tanks from the Space Shuttle with the idea of sending them back into orbit, carrying the concept of recycling about as far as it can go. When he grew enamored of cellular automata and chaos theory, arcane fields at the intersection of computing, mathematics and biology, the company released a family of products based on those concepts that are essentially video games for brainy adults.

While Mr. Walker is intensely private about his personal life, he has had no qualms about airing Autodesk’s dirty laundry–or effusively describing his technical ideas. He published a book containing scores of confidential Autodesk memos, many written by himself. And he once unsuccessfully tried to interest journalist Hunter Thompson in chronicling the company’s rise. An obsessive writer who often revises a memo dozens of times before releasing it, he also has written a manuscript for a diet book, based on his experience of losing (and keeping off) about 100 pounds.

He is prone to making unexpected pronouncements. In a rare public appearance in March, Mr. Walker interrupted the description of a new product with this observation: “We are living on a small blue sphere in an endless black void.”

Besides programming, Mr. Walker wrote press releases and ad copy and even pitched the product at trade shows in the company’s early years. But wearing so many hats frayed his nerves. He began to show increasing impatience with co-workers. “The only way he knows how to deal with people is to bluster,” says Mr. Riddle, who argued with him about the technical direction of AutoCad.

These fits of impatience dove-tailed with Mr. Walker’s continuing suspicion of professional managers, shared by other members of Core. In early 1986, he forced out John G. Ford Jr., the vice president for marketing and sales, who built the dealer network that many observers say is still Autodesk’s most valuable asset. Neither Mr. Walker nor Mr. Ford will comment.

Despite Mr. Walker’s rough edges, employees were, and still are, drawn to him the way kids admire the baddest boy in class. He “is the cult hero of Autodesk,” says Joe Oakey, who directs the company’s charitable foundation. “He could stand up before a company meeting and say ‘I hate you,’ and everyone would cheer.”

It was also in 1986 that Mr. Walker tired of management and handed daily responsibilities to Mr. Green. Two years later, he resigned as chairman to devote himself fully to writing software from his nearby home. But he still held a huge stake in the company. (He currently owns 869,000 shares–less than 4% of the shares outstanding, but still worth more than $30 million.)

Mr. Green was ill-suited to ride herd on the rambunctious Core. Trained in finance, Mr. Green didn’t even keep a computer on his desk, so he missed the electronic chatter that went on behind his back. When he needed to send an electronic message–the preferred means of discourse at Autodesk–he asked his secretary to do it.

Meanwhile, disputes kept breaking out among programmers and managers, usually about the technical direction of the company. “Over time, Autodesk became almost unmanageable,” says Mr. Foundyller, the analyst. “Why? Autodesk was run very democratically. People met. They discussed things. Many flowers bloomed. But nobody harvested.”

Sometimes, the paralysis was relatively innocuous, as when employees voted to delay the company’s move into a new office complex because they preferred an alternative site opposed by management. Other times, disagreements led to debates over how to lessen the company’s dependence on its AutoCad cash-cow–or even whether the company should try to diversify. The need for consensus led to many organizational quirks. Last year, for instance, the critical AutoCad division was assigned two general managers–one from the business side and one from Core–because neither was believed to have the experience to run it alone. Ms. Bartz has already changed that, appointing a new head of the division to whom the former co-general managers report.

The most bitter disputes arose between programmers and the company’s marketing and sales executives. “A tremendous schism” has existed for years between the two sides, says Mark Macgillivray, who has consulted for Autodesk on marketing issues. Core members and other programmers have simply refused to work on certain new products because they found them boring. Sometimes these are products that customers are clamoring for, such as a more memory-efficient version of AutoCad, which “the techies fought us tooth and nail on,” recalls one marketing executive.

At many software companies, a product manager balances the interests of sales, which wants to satisfy customer demand for certain product features, and the interests of engineers, who push certain features because they are possible. At Autodesk, when products were being conceived “it became very difficult to get features agreed to,” says Tim Cox, who was a product manager for two years until departing last November. “The problem we kept running into–everything needed to be the programming group’s idea.”

Indeed, opposing Core was tantamount to “attempting to butcher the sacred cow,” says Roger Clay, who left Autodesk last year to form a software company.

For a long time, the financial results didn’t reflect the conflict. From 1986 to 1990, net income nearly quintupled and sales jumped more than five-fold. But in the fourth quarter of fiscal 1991 ended Jan. 31, earnings fell about 25 percent below expectations on an unexpected slowdown in growth. The stock fell 22% in a single day. Financial analysts blamed Mr. Green for not keeping them informed, and Mr. Walker blamed him, too–for catering too much to analysts. He asserted that Mr. Green kept profit margins high at the expense of much-needed investments in new products and marketing, which “is how a company dies from making too much money,” he said in his memorable broadside in April 1991, entitled “The Final Days.”

Writing from his new home in Neuchatel, Switzerland, where he had recently moved to find more seclusion, Mr. Walker observed that it pained him “watching Autodesk squander everything I’ve been working 16 hours a day for since 1982.” He accused Mr. Green of “taking his marching orders from the accounting rules rather than the real world” and said he “was so appalled by what I heard at one management meeting that I vowed never to attend another management meeting and I never have.”

The memo was regarded as overwrought by some of Mr. Walker’s own Core associates. “That letter caused me a lot of pain to read,” says Gregory P. Lutz, one of two Core programmers on the board of directors. “He was right about a lot of things and I hadn’t done anything about it. But I thought some of it was unfair and a little exaggerated.”

Moreover, the broadside didn’t mention that Mr. Walker himself had left the company and picked Mr. Green as his successor. “When somebody like Mr. Walker isn’t there, it leaves a vacuum,” observes Microsoft’s chief, Mr. Gates. “People are free to do what they want. It’s just a damn shame that he hasn’t chosen to stay in management or even within the mainstream of software development at the company.”

But Mr. Walker’s pungent analysis (termed “just brilliant” by Mr. Gates) succeeded in getting everyone’s attention at Autodesk. “It was like when you fire a shotgun in an aviary,” recalls Mr. Walker of the letter’s effect. “It caused everybody to say: What is our strategy? What are we doing out there?”

Mr. Green dutifully decided to do most of what Mr. Walker wanted: invest more in marketing and advertising of new products Mr. Walker said were being “abandoned” after introduction; push harder on a new version of AutoCad for Windows, Microsoft’s emerging standard for controlling PC software; and back forays into new areas such as software tools for do-it-yourself designers and scientists. But Mr. Walker’s attack destroyed the credibility of Mr. Green, who in October disclosed plans to resign as chairman and chief executive.

Mr. Green defends his record and downplays Mr. Walker’s memo as a factor in his demise, saying he intended for some time to step down. But he adds that Mr. Walker “perpetually” criticized him. “To a great degree, he was right,” Mr. Green says of Mr. Walker’s memo, adding that “John’s batting average is pretty high” when it comes to picking strategies.

Mr. Green protests that it never was clear to anyone how best to diversify Autodesk’s revenue. He concedes that he approved the company’s issuance of an extraordinary $1.50 a share special dividend because retained profits were mounting so rapidly. “We were asked by people, ‘Don’t you have anything better to do with your cash,’” recalls Mr. Green. “Well, no we didn’t.”

To get a closer look at operations–and to help select a new chief executive–Mr. Walker invited himself back to Autodesk this year for three months as “manager of technology.”

The timing of Ms. Bartz’s ascension to the top job appears auspicious. There are signs that managers and programmers are starting to cooperate better. In March, for instance, Core and other AutoCad development teams for the first time agreed to compile a single to-do list required to complete the next version, which is due out by midyear. The list, which used to be kept in the heads of various developers, consists of 7,000 items. Each is assigned a completion deadline and the name of a person responsible for it.

Moreover, new products are starting to flow. In March, the company removed one monkey from its back by shipping its first Windows version of AutoCad. Autodesk also introduced its first scientific product in March, a program called HyperChem that allows chemists to create molecular models. The scientific market is “the hidden iceberg in software,” says Joel Voelz, the product manager. All together, Autodesk expects to release 25 new products in the fiscal year ending next Jan. 31.

“Very few public companies have been encouraged to report disappointing short-term results to make the investments that are necessary to adapt to a changing market,” Mr. Walker says. “Autodesk had that problem. Autodesk doesn’t have that problem any more.”

Indeed, last week, Autodesk reported that first-quarter profit fell 41%, citing heavy investment in new products. But investors seem willing to give Autodesk some time: The stock, which is trading at about half of its year-ago all-time high, went up on the news.

Another point in Ms. Bartz’s favor: Mr. Walker seems content for the moment. He returned to Switzerland on April 16, but not before pledging his “total and unqualified” support for Ms. Bartz and promising that neither he nor other Core members will “step in and prevent change at the last minute,” as has occurred in the past.

“It seems as if John and I are having a love-in,” says Ms. Bartz. But she also pointedly notes that Mr. Walker is so talented, “he could have many careers,” even one as a writer. “I admire John’s amazing writing skills,” she says.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090114/the-past-is-prologue-carol-bartz-and-autodesk-in-1992yahoo-now/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090113/good-luck-carol-youll-need-it-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20090113/good-luck-carol-youll-need-it-2/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:22:48 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=11256

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090113/good-luck-carol-youll-need-it-2/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090113/good-luck-carol-youll-need-it/ http://allthingsd.com/20090113/good-luck-carol-youll-need-it/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 23:22:48 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=11256

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090113/good-luck-carol-youll-need-it/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090113/live-blogging-yahoos-bartz-as-ceo-announcement-her-first-words-yahoooo/ http://allthingsd.com/20090113/live-blogging-yahoos-bartz-as-ceo-announcement-her-first-words-yahoooo/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:43:12 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=8529

Oh, BoomTown really likes Carol Bartz as Yahoo CEO already.

In Yahoo’s conference call this afternoon, she lectured everyone sternly to give Yahoo some “friggin’ breathing room” and also noted that the company “frankly, could use a little management.”

The latter is stating the very obvious, but we like hearing it anyway, and Bartz sounds like she is running the show from the get-go.

It’s like watching a digital version of “The Gladiator”!

So, here is Boomtown’s live blog of the Yahoo (YHOO) call, starring Carol Bartz as its new CEO:

2:35 pm PST:

The conference call started with Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, who stumbled at first and called Bartz “Carl”–Icahn on the brain?–before recovering and waxing effusively about the new Yahoo CEO and former Autodesk (ADSK) head.

He also thanked outgoing Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker, who is also resigning, it was announced earlier today. They are not present, it seems.

Frankly, Bostock is the one who should also be on his way out the door, given that he has also presided over Yahoo’s huge decline in market share and its myriad stumbles.

2:41 pm PST:

Bartz’s first word as CEO, of course: Yahoo!

But Bartz crisply took the bull by the horns at the start and said she will “seize the opportunity.” She sounded kind of scary, but in a good way.

She then laid out her many choices–search deal, etc.–but no decisions yet, you impatient curs!

And she calls herself a “straight shooter” in a really straight-shooter tone.

“My focus is on turning the company around,” she said flatly.

Oh, that. But, to be honest, it’s the best idea I have heard from Yahoo all year.

2:45 pm PST:

The floor is open for questions.

The first is about how she was approached and how she looks at Yahoo’s business.

December, she was intrigued, blah, blah.

Bartz then sharply raised the game, noting that Yahoo and its assets “frankly, could use a little management.”

Ouch, Jerry and Sue. A slapfest from the get-go!

She also thinks it “nonsense” to think that Yahoo was not feeling great about itself. In other words, shape up, Yahoo!

Bartz uses the word “nonsense” in that end-of-discussion way, like someone who has kids and knows a thing or two about nonsense.

End of discussion?

Not until she answers another question about Yahoo’s situation by noting that the company needs some “friggin’ breathing room” and that it’s time for all those outside the company who are endlessly yammering about what Yahoo needs to do, to shut their pie holes.

Uh-oh. Carol is not going to like pie-hole-yammering-about-Yahoo-obsessively HQ, also known as BoomTown.

I briefly consider a new career in real estate, before deciding to stay on the Yahoo CEO-stalking beat until she gives in.

A new challenge! Just when I thought the telenovela was lagging, it heats up with a new twist.

And, from the first call, it’s clear Bartz is a very new twist–a tough-talking, take-no-prisoners CEO for a company that needs one desperately.

Of course, Bartz cuts the conference short in about 15 minutes, after just three questions. (She totally did not take mine, which would have been: “Why, Carol, why?”)

She noted that she was off to a management meeting, which is much more important than chit-chatting with annoying press and analysts.

Bartz certainly has her work cut out for her, which she seems to be doing at the start with some verve and sassy punch that will hopefully reinvigorate the troubled Yahoo.

As Maximus said: “I knew a man once who said, ‘Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back.’”

So far, Bartz sounds like she knows how to smile.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090113/live-blogging-yahoos-bartz-as-ceo-announcement-her-first-words-yahoooo/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090113/yahoo-confirms-bartz-pick-as-ceo-the-official-blather-oops-press-release/ http://allthingsd.com/20090113/yahoo-confirms-bartz-pick-as-ceo-the-official-blather-oops-press-release/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:01:52 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=8501

As reported by BoomTown and others, Yahoo has officially selected former Autodesk (ADSK) head Carol Bartz as its next CEO, effective immediately.

She will also join the Yahoo board.

In a press release this afternoon, Yahoo also said President Sue Decker is resigning after an undetermined transition period. She has been at Yahoo almost nine years.

Decker was one of the internal CEO candidates, but she and outgoing Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang have been badly tarnished by Yahoo’s weak performance of late.

About the Bartz appointment, Yang said in the release: “I couldn’t be more pleased with the Board’s choice of Carol Bartz as CEO and look forward to returning to my former role as Chief Yahoo. I believe Carol is the ideal person to take Yahoo! forward and I will be honored to be a resource to assist her in any way she finds helpful.”

Carol Bartz said: “Yahoo! is a powerful global brand with a great collection of assets, strong technology, and enormously talented employees….There is no denying that Yahoo! has faced enormous challenges over the last year, but I believe there is now an extraordinary opportunity to create value for our shareholders and new possibilities for our customers, partners and employees. We will seize that opportunity.”

Cue the trumpets and fanfare! All hail the conquering Carol!

Well, maybe not, considering the dire straits Yahoo is in.

But you can read all about it below, while I ferret out the real information about what’s to come next.

Here’s the official Yahoo press release:

Carol Bartz Joins Yahoo! as Chief Executive Officer

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Jan 13, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) –

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), a leading global brand and one of the world’s most trafficked Internet destinations, announced today that Carol Bartz, a veteran technology executive who was most recently Executive Chairman of Autodesk (NASDAQ: ADSK), has been named Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors, effective immediately.

Prior to becoming Executive Chairman of Autodesk in 2006, Bartz, 60, led Autodesk as CEO for 14 years, transforming the company into a leader in computer-aided design software. During her tenure as CEO, revenues increased from less than $300 million to more than $1.5 billion, and the company’s share price increased nearly ten-fold.

In addition to turning around Autodesk, Bartz’s extensive executive experience includes hands-on responsibility for leading global operations, engineering, sales and marketing organizations for large technology and engineering companies including Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment Corporation and 3M.

Roy Bostock, Chairman of the Board, said, “We are very excited to have Carol Bartz leading Yahoo! into its next era of growth. She is the exact combination of seasoned technology executive and savvy leader that the Board was looking for, and we are thrilled to have attracted such a world-class talent to Yahoo!. She is admired in the Valley as well as on Wall Street for her deep management expertise, strong customer orientation, excellent people skills, and firm understanding of the challenges facing our industry. Carol meets all of the criteria we set for the search and is the only person to whom we offered the job. The Board is united in its view that her energetic and decisive leadership style, coupled with a proven track record of driving growth, operational excellence and shareholder value, is exactly what Yahoo! needs to get back on a path toward achieving its full potential.”

Bostock continued, “On behalf of the entire Board, I would like to thank Jerry Yang for acceding to our request 18 months ago to step into the CEO role. Jerry’s unwavering enthusiasm for Yahoo!, his unique perspective on the company, and iconic stature in the industry make him an invaluable resource for the future. We are delighted that he plans to stay actively involved and are deeply grateful for his many contributions to the company’s development over the years.”

Carol Bartz said, “Yahoo! is a powerful global brand with a great collection of assets, strong technology, and enormously talented employees. The Company has accomplished a great deal in its relatively short history and I look forward to working together to take it to the next level. There is no denying that Yahoo! has faced enormous challenges over the last year, but I believe there is now an extraordinary opportunity to create value for our shareholders and new possibilities for our customers, partners and employees. We will seize that opportunity.”

Jerry Yang said, “I couldn’t be more pleased with the Board’s choice of Carol Bartz as CEO and look forward to returning to my former role as Chief Yahoo. I believe Carol is the ideal person to take Yahoo! forward and I will be honored to be a resource to assist her in any way she finds helpful. I believe Yahoo!’s best years are still ahead of it. For the past 14 years, I have poured all of my energies into this great company–and I hope to keep contributing to its success for many years to come.”

Yahoo! also announced that President Sue Decker has informed the Board that she will resign after remaining with the Company for a transitional period. Bostock said, “The Board thanks Sue for her service as President, the important contributions she has made to Yahoo!’s development in a variety of roles over the past 8-1/2 years, and her willingness to work with Carol Bartz to ensure a smooth transition. We respect her decision to move on to other challenges and wish her only the best.”

Carol Bartz has been the Lead Independent Director of Cisco Systems since 2005 and a director since 1996. She also currently serves on the Board of Directors of Intel Corporation and NetApp. She holds a bachelors degree in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin.

Conference Call and Webcast Information

Yahoo! will host an analyst conference call to discuss today’s announcement at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time today. A live webcast of the conference call can be accessed through the Company’s Investor Relations website at http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/index.cfm. The dial-in number for the live conference call is (888) 253-4037. Participants calling from outside the United States may dial (719)867-0591. The passcode 379105 is required to access the call. In addition, an archive of the webcast can be accessed through the same link. An audio replay of the call will be available following the conference call by dialing (888) 348-4629 (Primary) or (719) 884-8882 (International), reservation number: 379105.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090113/yahoo-confirms-bartz-pick-as-ceo-the-official-blather-oops-press-release/feed/ 2