Earlier today, I had reported that Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock was stepping down.

He is, and the full letter he just released saying so is below.

Bostock did not say in the missive who will be Yahoo chairman in his place. Intuit CEO Brad Smith has a full-time job, and the newly installed Weather Channel CEO David Kenny does, too. Among the current directors, that would leave Sue James, Patti Hart and newly installed Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson — or one of Yahoo’s new board members.

In the letter, Bostock outlined the departures of four board members and the addition of five more directors (two of which were just named); did a little back-patting of his recent efforts to turn Yahoo around (after presiding over the board that got the Silicon Valley Internet giant into this mess); noted that the Asian talks to sell Yahoo’s stakes there are proceeding (it’s coming!); gave Thompson a thumbs-up (go, Scott!); and delivered kudos to Jerry Yang, the co-founder who left only weeks ago.

“Working with Jerry was always a delight,” wrote Bostock.

(Me, not so much, I would guess! Bygones?)

All kidding aside, Bostock has been the subject of a lot of criticism about Yahoo’s troubles, both deserved and undeserved, most especially for the non-sale to Microsoft several years ago. Many, including activist shareholder Daniel Loeb most recently, have called for his resignation.

It has not been an easy job, to be sure, so it must be a bit of a relief for the longtime advertising exec, who serves on other prominent boards, to finally pull away from the Yahoo black hole.

So, who’s next?

One interesting line in the letter, which everyone already knew, was that none of the various bids from outside investors have passed muster.

Wrote Bostock: “We have engaged with potential investors and reviewed proposals concerning an equity investment in the Company, although at this time there have not been any proposals which have been deemed by the Committee to be attractive to our shareholders.”

Here’s the Bostock letter:

Yahoo! Releases Chairman’s Update for Shareholders

SUNNYVALE, Calif., February 7, 2012 – Yahoo! Inc (NASDAQ: YHOO), the premier digital media company, today released the following shareholder update from its Chairman Roy Bostock.
February 7, 2012

Dear Fellow Shareholders:

I write today to update you on the actions the Yahoo! board has taken, and the actions it is pursuing, to increase shareholder value and position the Company for growth. These actions result from a process I initiated about six months ago in a special meeting of the independent directors in which we analyzed the reasons why Yahoo! was not meeting either our own expectations or those of our shareholders.

The board decided then to move aggressively on three fronts to position Yahoo! for future success: one, we initiated a search for a new Chief Executive Officer with a vision and set of skills to lead Yahoo! into the future; two, we undertook a comprehensive strategic and structural review of the business; and three, we decided to assess the composition of the Company’s board of directors relative to its ability to enhance the prospects for Yahoo!’s future success. We have made progress on all three fronts.

First, and most importantly, we have appointed Scott Thompson as CEO to lead our company. Scott is a capable and dynamic leader who brings the experience and expertise the Company needs to achieve robust growth and success in the marketplace. Over the coming months and years, Scott will lead an outstanding team of Yahoos to deliver engaging user experiences driven by innovative products.

Second, we have made significant progress on the comprehensive strategic review which is overseen by the board’s Transactions and Strategic Planning Committee, chaired by director Brad Smith, the CEO of Intuit. The Committee’s guiding principle has been to assess alternatives which would increase value for all Yahoo! shareholders, and the Committee has been open to any transaction or initiative that would serve this objective.

As part of this review, we have pursued a wide range of discussions with potential partners. We have engaged with potential investors and reviewed proposals concerning an equity investment in the Company, although at this time there have not been any proposals which have been deemed by the Committee to be attractive to our shareholders. We are also in active discussions with our partners in Asia regarding the possibility of restructuring our holdings in Alibaba Group and Yahoo! Japan. The complexity and unique nature of these transactions is significant. While we continue to devote significant resources to these discussions, we are not in a position at this time to provide further detail or to provide assurance that any transaction will be achieved.

Finally, the board has concluded that in order to accelerate the Company’s transformation, the combination of a new Chief Executive Officer with an enhanced team of independent directors would provide Yahoo! with the expertise and perspectives necessary to drive innovation and growth going forward. Therefore, Mr. Joshi, Mr. Kern, Mr. Wilson and I have volunteered not to stand for re-election at the next shareholders’ meeting.

Furthermore, the board today elected two highly qualified independent directors, Alfred Amoroso and Maynard Webb, Jr. Mr. Amoroso served as President and CEO of Rovi Corporation until December 2011 and, among other positions, had previously served as the President, CEO and Vice Chairman of META Group, Inc., the President and CEO of CrossWorlds Software, Inc. and as a member of the world-wide management committee of IBM Corporation. Mr. Webb, the Chairman of LiveOps, Inc., served as that company’s CEO until July 2011. Prior to that, Mr. Webb was Chief Operating Officer of eBay and Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Gateway, Inc., in addition to management, leadership and board positions at several other companies spanning his 30-year career.

The board continues its search for additional independent directors. This search is being led by director Patti Hart, CEO of International Game Technology, Inc., who chairs our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee. We anticipate announcing additional directors to round out the board as soon as this process concludes.

Separately, as previously announced, Jerry Yang has resigned from the board of directors and other positions within the Company to pursue his many interests outside of Yahoo!. Working with Jerry was always a delight. He is a visionary and a pioneer who contributed enormously to Yahoo! since he co-founded the Company in 1995. He will be missed. The board thanks him deeply for his service and commitment to the Company.

Thus, following this year’s Annual Meeting a majority of Yahoo!’s directors will be new to the board this year, and all directors will have joined the board since 2010. We believe that this reconfigured board, with a fresh set of perspectives and diverse set of skills, will enable the Company to move forward even more aggressively.

It has always been a privilege for me to serve as Chairman of Yahoo!. The employees of Yahoo! remain the heart, soul, and future of the company. And with Scott Thompson leading them, they are the reason why I believe Yahoo! will create significant shareholder value over the coming years.

In September, this board moved proactively and decisively to improve the performance of the Company for the benefit of its shareholders. These actions could not have been accomplished without the support and active participation of each director on the board. For that, I thank them. And I thank them for the knowledge, expertise, talents and commitment they have brought to Yahoo!. We all take pride in the fact that we are positioning Yahoo! for success in the future. Yahoo! is an incredibly strong brand with formidable assets. I have every expectation that under Scott’s leadership, working together with the reconstituted board, the Company will thrive for many years to come.

Sincerely,
Roy Bostock
Chairman of the Board

According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo will announce the impending departure of four of its longtime board members, including chairman Roy Bostock.

The others headed out the door are Hewlett-Packard exec Vyomesh Joshi, Gary Wilson and Arthur Kern.

I had reported in several previous posts that this exact group of directors was leaving, and noted in one yesterday that it was about to happen, and that new board members were also on the way.

And, presto, it is so!

(Update: Yahoo confirmed all in a letter it just released from Bostock, which I have posted separately.)

Yahoo’s two new directors are former Rovi CEO Fred Amoroso and LiveOps Chairman (and former CEO) Maynard Webb, who was once COO of eBay (pictured, left to right).

Rovi does digital entertainment technology, while LiveOps offers cloud-based enterprise solutions.

The Silicon Valley Internet giant will also be adding three more board members, said sources, but those people are not confirmed as yet.

And it is not clear who will be chairman of Yahoo’s board, either. Intuit CEO Brad Smith has a full-time job, and the newly installed Weather Channel CEO David Kenny does, too.

Sources said the news is coming after the markets close, with other updates, including: The news-free status of its ongoing strategery (the Asian deal is coming along — blah, blah, blah — but you read that here yesterday in much more detail); ladling praise on new CEO Scott Thompson (also formerly of eBay); and giving props to co-founder Jerry Yang, who stepped away from the board and from the company several weeks ago.

The moves by Yahoo are designed to thwart a possible proxy fight that might be coming from activist shareholder Daniel Loeb, who has been working on a board slate of his own.

It’s been hard for him, and also for Yahoo, to attract significant names to the board. The two new additions are solid tech execs, although certainly not high-profile appointments.

Yahoo declined to comment.

Here are their bios from the Rovi and LiveOps Web sites, if you want to know more:

Fred Amoroso is a member of Rovi Corporation’s Board of Directors.

Fred Amoroso is a member of Rovi Corporation’s Board of Directors. Fred Amoroso previously served as Rovi’s president and chief executive officer from July 2005 to December 2011. Prior to joining Rovi, Mr. Amoroso served as an advisor to Warburg Pincus, an investment firm from September 2004 to June 2005. From July 2002 to August 2004, Mr. Amoroso served as the president, chief executive officer and vice chairman of Meta Group, an information technology research and advisory firm. From October 1999 until its merger with IBM in January 2002, Mr. Amoroso served as president, chief executive officer and a director of CrossWorlds Software, Inc. Prior to CrossWorlds, Amoroso was a member of the world-wide management committee of IBM, was general manager of IBM Global Services Asia Pacific and held various other executive positions at IBM. Before joining IBM, Amoroso held various positions at Price Waterhouse, now PricewaterhouseCoopers, including lead technology partner.

Mr. Amoroso holds a B.S. in systems engineering and M.S. in operations research from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.

As Chairman, Maynard brings almost 30 years of experience developing and leading high-growth companies to his role at LiveOps. From December 20, 2006 to July 18, 2011, Maynard was also LiveOps CEO. He joined LiveOps from eBay where he served as Chief Operating Officer. At eBay, Maynard directed engineering and technology operations, product development, customer support, trust and safety, global billing, human resources, and legal functions. Prior to eBay, Maynard was Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer for Gateway, Inc. He has also held management and leadership positions at Bay Networks, Quantum Corporation, Thomas-Conrad Corporation and IBM. A respected member of the Silicon Valley technology community, Maynard sits on the boards of several successful companies, including Salesforce.com, Admob and Baynote. Maynard holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Florida Atlantic University.

If you thought things were going to quiet down with Yahoo now that it has installed new CEO Scott Thompson in place, think again!

That’s because of a very unusual — well, to be fair, unusual for most companies, but not for perpetually storm-tossed Yahoo — confluence of important events about to take place all at once over the next six weeks.

And, like a very dicey game of corporate Jenga, each has the ability to upend and impact the other significantly, either for the good or, well, for the bad.

Here are the four horsemen of the possible Yahapocalypse, all riding into town very soon:

Q4 Results: Yahoo will report its fourth quarter earnings on January 24th, after the markets close. While sources said the company has managed to turn around what was looking like a first-class disaster, it’s still not going to be a pretty picture when it comes to advertising growth, consumer engagement and other key metrics.

Simply put, Yahoo needs to show investors a fast-growing business. Instead, sources said the Q4 results will likely come in at the bottom of the expected range, which should be unimpressive, even though this has been business as usual at Yahoo for some time.

If Google and others have strong reports, of course, it will make the situation worse.

Along with goosing its ad business again, Yahoo needs to spur innovation and intro some cool new products in new arenas to make Silicon Valley and others perk up.

Proxy Fight?: Weak results will give a nice lift to potential efforts by activist investor Daniel Loeb of Third Point — a major Yahoo shareholder — to wage a proxy fight for control of the company. He’s already here in Silicon Valley this week searching for possible board members for an alternate slate of directors.

As I wrote earlier today, the earliest nominations for directors can be submitted is February 24. Loeb then has a month after that to submit a competing roster.

Worse for Yahoo, many of Yahoo’s major investors are mulling backing Loeb if he initiates a battle for control of the company.

There’s no doubt that Loeb is and means to be a thorn in Yahoo’s side — he already made a lot of noise about its consideration of partial investments from private equity firms, due to low share prices — until major changes take place at the company.

And by major, Loeb’s intent seems to be along these baseball lines: Throw the bums out!

Board in Flux: Speaking of the board, it’s not the pretty picture of solidarity as you might think.

Actually, no one in their right mind thinks that. This board is about as dysfunctional as they come. (It’s like that group on “American Horror Story,” minus the bald dwarf in the basement.)

Right now, several sources report, various factions are jockeying over which board members go and which stay. The Wall Street Journal reported last week on a formal search for new board members to replace outgoing ones, but it’s much more complex than just that.

While some departures seem most obvious — longtime board members Vyomesh Joshi, Arthur Kern and Gary Wilson — the really interesting part will be the possible exit of Chairman Roy Bostock.

While it now is more of a when rather than an if, many sources report, how it goes down is the key part of the move. And who will be the chairman then will be the big conundrum — either an internal candidate, such as David Kenny, or a fresh-eyed outsider.

Another question mark: Whether co-founder Jerry Yang could also move along off the board with Bostock. While Internet company founders usually stick on boards, it’s not a given, especially with all the turmoil at Yahoo, some of which is related to Yang.

For now, make no mistake, Bostock is still in charge of the board and Yang is the only real power behind that power, despite the recent influence of director Brad Smith.

But, with all the pressure by shareholders, some sources suggest that it might finally be time for some significant change at the board level, starting with the pair most associated with all its troubles.

Or, um, not.

If there is going to be any action at all, expect it before February 24th — when Loeb can start making real trouble.

Asian Solution: A lot of the above hinges on whether Bostock and Yang can deliver the promise of a deal with its long disgruntled Asian partners, Alibaba Group and SoftBank.

The trio is now engaged on negotiations about a tax-free deal, in which Yahoo would sell back some of its stakes in its Asian properties and get money and other operating assets in return.

While it’s good news that the talks are finally proceeding with some level of normal functionality, it’s still a complex situation and one with a lot of outstanding questions.

Most important: Which operating assets will be bought in the deal to hand over to Yahoo? And also, what will the valuations be?

Sources close to the situation said that the talks remain slow-going and frustrating — “The stop-and-go of all time,” joked one person involved. But they are moving forward, which is no small thing when it comes to these three.

That’s critical for Yahoo, which can ill afford to disappoint shareholders if no lucrative, cash-rich deal happens in Asia. And, it needs to happen before Loeb can act on a proxy fight too, since a successful end to its Asian issues will negate his momentum dramatically.

Oh Yeah, Running the Core Business Stuff: As usual, a full and fraught month for Yahoo and its directors, who have other things to do, I assume.

But not me and not new CEO Thompson. By the way, the former eBay exec will presumably be very busy doing some significant rejiggering of the core Yahoo business in the meantime.

Could that mean a new product direction for Yahoo, for example, around data? Could it mean a passel of new execs? Could it mean layoffs?

Or, could it mean Thompson will finally solve the ultimate sword-in-the-stone question: What is Yahoo?

And that, in the end, will be the real victory.

Yahoo shareholders felt a little giddier earlier this week, when it seemed as if the company had finally decided to make a deal with its Asian partners.

But the happiest crew might end up being the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s outside counsel, Skadden Arps — and especially Leif King, the fantastically named legal eagle who has been advising Yahoo on the deal.

That’s because today the Yahoo board approved continuing the negotiations to come to a final agreement over the stake, sources said, which should take six to eight weeks.

It’ll surely be happy holidays for billable hours!

As costly as the legal bills will be, if it all goes well, an Asian solution will mean one major problem solved, with a possible pile of cash and new assets coming in to Yahoo.

To get there, the company signed a term sheet earlier this week with Japan’s SoftBank to sell back all its holdings there, and with China’s Alibaba Group to sell off more than half its stake (moving from a 40 percent stake to a 15 percent one).

The deal values Yahoo’s total shares in both companies at about $17 billion.

While it gets a pretty accounting name — “cash-rich split “– the vehicle to unwind it all is essentially a complex tax dodge finally cooked up by the trio, in which cash, new assets and stock will be moved around until everyone gets what they want (except the U.S. government).

I would explain it — but I am on vacation, and would rather drink eggnog and sleep — so here is The Wall Street Journal’s version, which I like because it sounds like Alibaba and SoftBank are giving Yahoo a hugely loaded Starbucks card for Christmas:

“As envisioned in the scenario, Alibaba would create a subsidiary into which it would put several billion dollars of cash, plus an operating asset that Yahoo wants to buy using additional cash from Alibaba, almost like giving Yahoo a prepaid card for an asset of its choice, the people said.”

Everyone is hoping there will not be any hiccups in the deal, which has been spearheaded by Yahoo board member and Intuit CEO Brad Smith, and Jerry Yang, who is also the company’s co-founder and a major shareholder.

Alibaba CEO Jack Ma and CFO Joe Tsai, both co-founders of that company, were the point men for the Chinese company. And for SoftBank, it was its founder and CEO Masa Son and his main U.S. exec, Ron Fisher.

Now, said sources, Yahoo’s board is hoping to still keep the bids from a pair of private equity firms — Silver Lake and TPG Capital — alive.

While initially the focus on the action, the PE bidding for partial Yahoo stakes has recently been sidelined by the Asian deal.

Now, sources said, Yahoo is hoping the new infusion of cash and assets will allow it fend off shareholder unrest — stock buybacks and dividends, anyone — to solicit higher prices from the firms to make strategic investments.

Yahoo had considered the initial bids too low, as did some very pissed-off activist shareholders.

Still, it’s not clear if those firms will jack their offers now, although sources said Silver Lake is still interested in some sort of deal that would give it influence over remaking Yahoo.

Silver Lake and others think the long-troubled company could be revived with some effort, and become a much more lucrative Web property.

But those negotiations might run into roadblocks over who gets to pick leadership for the company. Yahoo has accelerated its efforts to hire a new CEO, after firing Carol Bartz in September.

The PE firms, who would buy a large stake in Yahoo, also have wanted some level of control, including CEO and board approval, in order to be able to make massive changes at the company to turn it around.

Wall Street seems to like the Asian part of the deal, at least, since it shows some sort of forward momentum at Yahoo, and from its often-lugubrious board.

Shares are up almost 7 percent in the last few days, although they are not popping as they might be, given that new valuations based on a successful Asian deal put the stock at a much higher price.

In other words, investors like what they see, but are watching and waiting for more.

“Let’s go. Yes, let’s go.” [They do not move.]

– Samuel Beckett, “Waiting for Godot”

In Internet terms, the removal of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz happened a dog’s age ago.

In fact, it was September 6.

Since then, it has felt like a slow slog, especially contrasting the situation with that of another troubled Silicon Valley giant, Hewlett-Packard, which fired its CEO Léo Apotheker and appointed a new one, Meg Whitman on September 22.

Since then, in comparison, the former eBay CEO has been like the Energizer Bunny, making a series of major and often difficult decisions, including: Holding onto its PC unit; reaffirming its controversial deal to buy Autonomy; promising a decision on the fate of its webOS unit within the next two weeks; appointing new execs; and even buying a company.

To be fair, Yahoo did acquire advertising start-up Interclick.

Otherwise, still no sale or investment deal. No new CEO. No Asia resolution. And, perhaps most importantly, no clearly articulated strategy going forward.

It’s not that Yahoo’s leadership isn’t working at it.

Some fervently insist to me that there is a “plan,” as if there is some clever game of Internet Stratego going on that I cannot possibly grok.

Mebbe — but of this I have no doubt: The Yahoo board has indeed been huffing and puffing away, weighing and measuring, considering and debating.

A lot.

Maybe I’m just too impatient. I am (ask my kids).

Or maybe Yahoo’s beleaguered employees are, one of whom just wrote me plaintively, “unreal how they can drag this out,” in what has become a common refrain up and down the ranks.

Or maybe it’s the Asian partners, Alibaba Group and SoftBank, who are antsy and have considered a variety of nuclear options in order to get back stakes Yahoo holds in them. Said one: “The strategy seems to be to frustrate and exhaust us into submission.”

Or, finally, maybe it’s the newly frustrated recent bidders for a partial stake in Yahoo, Silver Lake and TPG Capital. Declared one to me after I warned that Yahoo might, in fact, drag the proceedings out longer than you might expect: “I thought you were kidding.”

Nope, welcome to the Yahoo waiting game, PE guys!

So, to help us all get through it, here’s a quick update primer on what’s what on the various fronts:

Who’s in Charge Here?

Technically, it is the Yahoo board, which is aided by interim CEO Tim Morse.

First, a word about Morse: By all accounts, he is doing a very good job as temporary head honcho — calming the troubled company, making swift decisions about daily operating issues and being a generally nice dude to deal with.

“He’s Yahoo’s no-drama Obama, in comparison to what was happening before,” said one exec, in reference to the more volatile regime under Bartz.

Still, despite his very pleasant all-hands meetings, such as one earlier this week, Morse had previously been Yahoo’s CFO and not an Internet-savvy visionary to give the company inspiration. No insult intended, but he’s the accountant guy.

To be fair, he is not meant to be the visionary, but many at the company are yearning for exactly that.

A role that is now being taken up again by co-founder, former CEO and director Jerry Yang, who dozens of employees tell me is unusually involved in operational details these days for a board member.

I get reports of sightings of him all the livelong day: Jerry in demand-side advertising confab! Jerry chitchatting with entrepreneurs from a possible start-up acquisition! Jerry weighing in on a variety of products. Look, over in the cubicle, it’s Jerry!

This is seen by Yahoo employees as a good thing and also a bad thing, since it’s hard to be running your little divisional show at Yahoo with the dude who invented it all looking over your shoulder, even if he means well. People naturally defer to Yang, the 800-pound Web icon in the room.

But, given the overwhelming state of stasis at Yahoo now — “No one can do anything until we find out how the story ends,” said one staffer — and employees eying the exits, no power at Yahoo really matters but the board.

You know, the board that has gotten the company to this moment of crisis and profound ennui, which is its own particularly ironic irony.

To better understand the power dynamics on the board, above is a little chart for you to peruse to give you an idea of which independent board member is running what key committee.

The only truly important one is the Transactions and Strategic Planning committee, which is headed by Intuit President and CEO Brad Smith and includes former Akamai President (and former Yahoo CEO candidate) David Kenny, top HP exec Vyomesh Joshi and other guy Gary Wilson.

And, in completely visible shadow form, Yang. Multiple sources close to the situation said he has been a key force in the strategery around a possible sale or investment.

This has caused not more than a little tension among board members, but everyone seems to like the much described nicest-man-in-the-room, Smith, and hopes his cool head will prevail.

Another important part of the board is the Nominating and Corporate Governance committee run by Patti Hart, who is energetically and simultaneously — if pointlessly — in search of a capable new Yahoo CEO.

Or, as I like to call this mythical person: The Unicorn.

The Deal

As I and many others have previously reported, there are bids on the table for partial investments in Yahoo by two very powerful private equity firms, Silver Lake and TPG Capital.

It’s a PE rumble, with a side of Microsoft financial backing! (I think Silver Lake’s Egon Durban makes a very nice Riff, while Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer is the perfect Officer Krupke.)

My fervent wishes for some figurative and dance-accompanied knife-play aside, the bids are essentially the same in general and different in particular. Silver Lake is offering about $16.50 a share, while TPG is dangling a tiny bit more. Silver Lake has power entrepreneur and VC Marc Andreessen on its side, while TPG is trying to get Silicon Valley fave investor and start-up whisperer Reid Hoffman of Greylock Partners and LinkedIn on its team. Both have ideas on CEOs, strategy and what to do about the Asian assets.

This type of deal could happen suddenly and you’ll hear about it quick, since the losing side will immediately trash it to the media.

As you might expect, each director has their favorite PE firm, with some not liking Andreessen, some thinking the TPG bid is a little light, some for a whole-company deal and some wanting Yahoo to hire its own CEO and run the place itself.

Of course, the last one shows a disturbing level of denial and should be a nonstarter, given the board’s abysmal record on CEO choice and its riding of Yahoo to this sad point in its storied history.

Here’s what to expect on the PE front: A lot of wrangling behind the scenes with frequent leaks to the media about what each side wants and will not yield on.

CEO choice or no CEO choice, that is the question!

Also a big factor are Yahoo’s major shareholders, few of whom like the partial investment deal, which is known as a PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity), because of the insiderness of it all and because they prefer a whole-company sale at a higher price.

There is also pressure from activist shareholders like Daniel Loeb of Third Point, who has attacked Yang and others on the board and is ready to pounce with a proxy fight if Yahoo tries to override shareholders too egregiously. And, of course, the inevitable lawsuits over any arrangement that seems to block a whole-company bid.

That said, such a mega-deal seems unlikely, since it is too pricey and despite a lot of noise that Yahoo’s Asian partners were ready to strike with a takeover in order to get back Yahoo’s big stakes in their companies.

That’s kind of like buying a store to get back the cool pair of shoes you sold, but bankers love to scheme up this stuff. While it certainly could happen, it would be a bear of a deal.

Perhaps more like Yogi Bear, hopelessly angling for a tasty pic-a-nik basket — but grrrr anyway.

But perhaps the biggest factor in all of this mishegas is time. There is none on a lot of levels, most especially the increasing level of brain drain and drift at Yahoo. After the New Year dawns, this is going to spin right out of control and amount to the biggest internal challenge Yahoo faces.

An Asian Solution

As I and others have reported, Yahoo is entertaining yet another proposal to sell all or part of its Asian assets back to the companies, which make up a bulk of its market valuation.

The relationship between Yahoo and its Asian partners has long been fraught, and today the difficulty of reaching an agreement remains a vexing issue. That’s because it is hard and complex and because no one wants to do what the other side wants.

I am no tax attorney, but it seems as if Yahoo will ultimately come to some deal with China’s Alibaba and Japan’s SoftBank, which could include big investors like Russia’s DST Global.

And, as I reported last week, the Asian partners want to strike a deal with the current board rather than lose leverage with a much cannier new owner.

It’s a tough decision in all aspects to strike, but would remove the focus on the fact that Yahoo’s most valuable asset is something it is not running and simply holds due to a good stock trade in years past.

Years past should be the operative thought here, since the Asian assets have nothing to do with what Yahoo needs to do with its core U.S. and global brand.

You know, the thing that allowed them to buy those lucrative Asian assets in the first place?

Strategery

And that’s the crux of all this, isn’t it? Yahoo needs a new strategy and fast.

Or it needs to clarify and hone its current strategies around advertising and media and define itself once and for all. While it often touts itself as a premier digital media company, it’s still not clear exactly what Yahoo is saying by that.

In fact, incredibly, sources told me that the board was still wrangling over the tired issue of what Yahoo is at its most recent meeting — essentially, is it a products company or a media company?

If I had to listen to that who-am-I-anyway debate again, I think I would scream, given how many important Web trends that Yahoo has whiffed in recent years, many of which were right in its own wheelhouse.

How much damage this has caused to Yahoo’s core business is a critical one to determine, with many feeling the situation is too far gone to revive it and others confident that this is simply an issue of poor execution.

I am in the middle on this one, but all the indicators of Yahoo’s business have long been heading in the wrong direction, and results in the next quarter are expected to underline this even more.

Thus, the board’s navel-gazing at this point is untoward, considering that it is presiding over the possibility of a sale that should not have had to happen in the first place. While it is not quite a fire sale, it’s no cause for celebration at all the attention, either.

In fact, it’s also pointless, since — if this all resolves as it should — the current Yahoo board will not be the one determining the company’s future any longer. Remember that: This group should and will be gone for the most part.

Yahoo shareholders and employees can hope, at least.

Then, it will be up to the next group of leaders to make the very hard choices — including what are likely to be massive layoffs and radical surgery on its offerings — for what’s to come next.

In the end, that is all that will matter. Until then, as usual, you’ll have to sit tight.

Maybe get something cooking in the whole what-will-Yahoo-do stakes, now that one of Yahoo’s more active board members is back.

And by “back,” I mean that Kenny — no longer a candidate for CEO — has no further need to recuse himself from the strategic process in which the Silicon Valley Internet company finds itself.

In an interview with Advertising Age last week, Kenny — the well-regarded online ad exec who recently stepped down as president of network infrastructure giant Akamai — released an unusual statement:

As a matter of policy, I do not comment on matters related to Yahoo as a Yahoo director. However, as a personal matter, I want to clarify that I believe Yahoo is a great company with enormous potential, but I am not — and will not be — a candidate for the CEO position. I look forward to my continued service on the Yahoo Board of Directors.”

By removing himself from the fray, that means, according to several sources, that Kenny will be diving back into sleeve-rolling duties at Yahoo, as one of its — how can I put this? — less comatose board members.

In fact — until he was sidelined by the obvious conflict of interest inherent in wanting to be CEO, while also directing the fate of Yahoo for shareholder value — Kenny had been deeply involved in a lot of the changes that had taken place of late, after a long period of board inaction.

That included the ouster of CEO Carol Bartz, who was fired for a number of reasons, including lack of strategic vision. It was relatively new board member Kenny — he became a director in February — who led the strategy committee that had asked Bartz for her road map, which she did not deliver to their liking. Obviously.

Because of the swirl around his possible CEO candidacy — Kenny was a noticeable inside candidate, since he is well known in the Internet advertising world for running and then selling Digitas to the Publicis Groupe for $1.3 billion in 2006 — he gave up leadership of the committee to Intuit President Brad Smith.

Sources said it is unlikely Kenny will get that top job back, but he remains a member of the transactions committee, which is leading the strategic review of the company.

That’s the key slot for the independent board members of Yahoo, who must ultimately be the ones to determine what path or offer the company will take.

One plus: Kenny has close relationships with most of the bidders — largely private equity firms — looking at Yahoo, and also is well known among the media and tech companies poking around, too. He also has advertising — and now tech — experience, which will be much needed as Yahoo explores its options.

Most importantly, Kenny is an independent director, which will be very important to the process going forward, especially since a lot of the spotlight has fallen on Yahoo co-founder and director Jerry Yang.

Yang — who has been a bit of a Yahoo lightning rod at times — has been involved in some of the meetings with those interested, along with interim CEO Tim Morse. The company recently noted that this was at the behest of the board.

While these were only informational meetings so far — and not negotiations, as some reports have surmised — Yang’s involvement will likely have to be more curtailed, at least publicly, especially if any of the deals include using his own large stake in Yahoo.

“This process has to be above board, since it is so easy for those wanting a better deal to try to cause all kinds of trouble,” said one source. “The company is already under attack in that regard.”

That’s a reference to a recent salvo by hedge fund activist Dan Loeb, a major Yahoo shareholder who has taken aim at the board and, last week, at Yang. Loeb essentially accused Yang of double-dealing in the process.

Enter Kenny, along with Smith and — to an increasingly lesser extent, of late — Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock. While there are other independent board members involved, these are the three to watch most closely now.

While some think Kenny still would like to be CEO of Yahoo — he was also on the short list several years ago when Bartz was hired — sources said he is more likely to take a job at another consumer Internet company.

While he certainly could slot into a large advertising firm or into the digital division of a big media concern, sources said Kenny is looking to be a CEO.

Just not at Yahoo.

At least for now, since down the road it is unclear what will become of Yahoo and who will run it in years to come.

In fact, it might even be Kenny in the end.

“So far we have not seen a single Android device that does not infringe on our patents,” Smith said. Microsoft’s solution is fairly simple: it is seeking a per-unit royalty for each Android product that ships. The company reached a key milestone on Wednesday as it announced that it had signed a deal with Samsung under which the Korean firm will pay Microsoft a royalty for every Android phone and tablet it sells.

“I think there is a good chance we will look back at today and say this was the day that we reached a tipping point in the market,” Smith told AllThingsD in a telephone interview.

Following a deal with HTC, Smith said last year that the company was “open for business” when it came to licensing its patents to Android device makers. Having signed Samsung is a big deal, Smith noted, particularly since Samsung and HTC account for a significant majority of the Android phones sold in the United States. “I think it sends a clear signal to everybody else in the market that we now have a clear path forward for resolving issues that are clearly on everybody’s mind,” Smith said.

In addition to HTC and Samsung, Microsoft has also signed Android-related patent deals with ViewSonic, Acer and a number of lesser-known companies. Microsoft has also sued both Motorola and Barnes & Noble over Android-related patent claims.

Of course, Microsoft’s solution — that Android makers pay it for each unit they sell — may not be something that every hardware maker is willing to agree to.

Google, for its part, lashed out at the deal.

“This is the same tactic we’ve seen time and again from Microsoft,” the company said in a statement. “Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures to extort profit from others’ achievements and hinder the pace of innovation. We remain focused on building new technology and supporting Android partners.”

Although the deal with Samsung also calls for further cooperation around Windows Phone, Smith said that Microsoft is seeking a standard per-unit royalty figure from handset makers, regardless of whether they are partnered with Microsoft around Windows Phone. He declined to offer further specifics on the amount Microsoft is seeking, except to confirm that it is less than the company would attempt to garner if it is forced to go to court.

Smith also points out that the deal covers both phones and tablets.

Of course, that raises the question about a certain Android tablet that Microsoft’s Seattle-area neighbors introduced on Wednesday.

Smith didn’t comment directly on Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Microsoft and Amazon have a prior agreement that covers the original Kindle and other Linux-based products from Amazon, though that deal does not cover Android products.

As for the broader mobile patent issues swirling in the industry, Smith said that there may be some drama yet to unfold, but that there is likely to be resolution to those as well.

“Ultimately we will see licensing regimes emerge,” Smith said. “That doesn’t mean that there won’t be some dramatic events between now and the time that happens.”

After Google’s legal head David Drummond let forth with a blog post about how Microsoft and Apple had formed an evil patent cabal against the search giant, the software giant’s PR head Frank Shaw was not having any of it.

In his post, Drummond had claimed the pair ganged up on Google and had not offered to partner over key former Novell patents, in an attempt to stop the growth of its Android mobile operating system.

Except not, according to an email that Shaw posted on Twitter from Google’s legal counsel Kent Walker to Microsoft’s legal head Brad Smith.

Tweeted Shaw: “Free advice for David Drummond – next time check with Kent Walker before you blog. :)”

It was followed by the image of the email, in which Walker seemed to turn down an offer of a partnership over the patents. “After talking with people here, it sounds as though for various reasons a joint bid wouldn’t be advisable for us on this one.”

Smith also piled on on Twitter, noting: “Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no.”

Wax on, Google!

Here’s the image of the email:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Microsoft’s playbook is nearly identical to the one the company used several years back in trying to convince those making Linux-related products to license Microsoft-owned patents. Redmond claimed that Linux was filled with technologies that infringed on Microsoft’s intellectual property

The Linux battle really heated up around 2006, when the company made a landmark deal with Novell in 2006. That was followed by veiled threats of legal action and a slew of licensing deals struck with companies ranging from software makers Turbolinux and Xandros to hardware makers Kyocera Mita and Fuji Xerox.

With Android, Microsoft announced a deal last April whereby HTC would pay Microsoft for every Android device it sells. Microsoft top lawyer Brad Smith said the HTC deal was designed to send a message to the industry that the company is serious about its Android claims.

“By entering into an agreement with HTC, we effectively signaled we are open for business when it comes to licensing,” Smith said at a dinner with reporters last year.

This past week, Microsoft announced four deals with smaller Android device makers Onkyo, Wistron, Velocity Micro and General Dynamics Itronix.

There are some differences between the current approach with Android and the one Microsoft took vis-à-vis Linux. With Linux, Microsoft generally avoided going the litigation route. It wasn’t until years after it started licensing Linux that it filed its first suit involving Linux-related claims — a suit against GPS maker TomTom that was quickly settled.

In the current situation, Microsoft has gone to court early. Not long after it reached the settlement with HTC, Microsoft announced a suit against Motorola. More recently, the company has sued Barnes & Noble, alleging the bookseller’s Android-based Nook products infringe on Microsoft’s intellectual property.

Also, with Linux, Microsoft was largely alone in seeking patent dollars, save for the SCO Group and its effort to take on IBM. On the mobile side, the patent game is much less clear, with Nokia and Apple also looking to enforce their patent rights on various players — including one another. Apple and Nokia settled their patent spat earlier this year, while Apple has its ongoing suit against HTC and Nokia has also said it sees an opportunity to boost its licensing revenue. Meanwhile, Oracle has sued Google directly over Android.

In a clear sign of how high the stakes are, Microsoft, along with a consortium of other companies including Apple, Research In Motion and Sony, agreed to pay $4.5 billion to buy 6,000 patents from bankrupt Nortel Networks, thereby keeping them out of the hands of rivals, including Google.

The upside this time around could be even bigger for Microsoft. On the desktop, the company clearly makes far more from selling Windows than it does when a Linux device is shipped by someone who has taken a license to Microsoft’s patents.

Depending on how Microsoft does on the legal front, and if it is able to get Windows Phone to take off, Microsoft could end up making more from licensing than from selling its own software, not that it wouldn’t rather have customers than licensees.

One analyst suggests that Microsoft is getting around $5 per Android device from HTC, and Redmond is said to be seeking double-digit royalties from other Android makers. Recent reports in Korea, for example, suggest Microsoft wants $15 per device from Samsung, though the same reports suggest the company might take less per Android device if Samsung is willing to commit to a solid Windows Phone road map.

Microsoft declined to comment on the terms of its deal with HTC or on the royalty amounts it is seeking from others. However, if you are making an Android product, my guess is you have already heard from their lawyers.

Microsoft’s legal eagle Brad Smith didn’t even bother to pretend the software giant’s filing of a formal antitrust complaint against Google with the European Commission wasn’t a wee bit ironic.

Wrote Smith in a blog post late last night:

“There of course will be some who will point out the irony in today’s filing. Having spent more than a decade wearing the shoe on the other foot with the European Commission, the filing of a formal antitrust complaint is not something we take lightly. This is the first time Microsoft Corporation has ever taken this step.”

But take it the company did, noting: “Microsoft is filing a formal complaint with the European Commission as part of the Commission’s ongoing investigation into whether Google has violated European competition law.”

Google, no surprise, disagreed, via a statement from a spokesman.

“We’re not surprised that Microsoft has done this, since one of their subsidiaries was one of the original complainants. For our part, we continue to discuss the case with the European Commission and we’re happy to explain to anyone how our business works.”

Here is the whole Microsoft post, in which Smith outlines Microsoft reasons for its action:

Adding our Voice to Concerns about Search in Europe

30 Mar 2011 9:00 PM

Posted by Brad Smith

Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Microsoft Corporation

Microsoft is filing a formal complaint with the European Commission as part of the Commission’s ongoing investigation into whether Google has violated European competition law. We thought it important to be transparent and provide some information on what we’re doing and why.

At the outset, we should be among the first to compliment Google for its genuine innovations, of which there have been many over the past decade. As the only viable search competitor to Google in the U.S. and much of Europe, we respect their engineering prowess and competitive drive. Google has done much to advance its laudable mission to “organize the world’s information,” but we’re concerned by a broadening pattern of conduct aimed at stopping anyone else from creating a competitive alternative.

We’ve therefore decided to join a large and growing number of companies registering their concerns about the European search market. By the European Commission’s own reckoning, Google has about 95 percent of the search market in Europe. This contrasts with the United States, where Microsoft serves about a quarter of Americans’ search needs either directly through Bing or through our partnership with Yahoo!.

At Microsoft we’ve shown that we’re prepared to work hard and invest literally billions of dollars annually to offer Bing, a search service that many now regard as the most innovative available. But, hard work and innovation need a fair and competitive marketplace in which to thrive, and twice the Department of Justice has intervened to thwart Google’s unlawful conduct from impeding fair competition. In 2008 the DOJ moved to file suit against Google for its unlawful attempt to tie up and set search advertising prices at Yahoo!, causing Google to back down. And last year the DOJ formally objected to Google’s efforts to monopolize book content, a position affirmed by a federal district court in New York just last week. Unfortunately, even this has not stopped the spread by Google of new and disconcerting practices in the United States.

As troubling as the situation is in United States, it is worse in Europe. That is why our filing today focuses on a pattern of actions that Google has taken to entrench its dominance in the markets for online search and search advertising to the detriment of European consumers.

How does it do this? Google has built its business on indexing and displaying snippets of other organizations’ Web content. It understands as well as anyone that search engines depend upon the openness of the Web in order to function properly, and it’s quick to complain when others undermine this. Unfortunately, Google has engaged in a broadening pattern of walling off access to content and data that competitors need to provide search results to consumers and to attract advertisers.

On PCs it is usually not difficult for people to navigate to any search engine. Google in fact makes this point virtually every time someone raises antitrust concerns about their practices. Their defense ignores the hugely important fact that there are many other important ways that search services compete. Search engines compete to index the Web as fully as possible so they can generate good search results, they compete to gain advertisers (the source of revenue in this business), and they compete to gain distribution of their search boxes through Web sites. Consumers will not benefit from clicking to alternative sites unless all search engines have a fair opportunity to compete in each of these areas.

Our filing details many instances where Google is impeding competition in these areas. A half-dozen examples below help illustrate some of our concerns.

First, in 2006 Google acquired YouTube–and since then it has put in place a growing number of technical measures to restrict competing search engines from properly accessing it for their search results. Without proper access to YouTube, Bing and other search engines cannot stand with Google on an equal footing in returning search results with links to YouTube videos and that, of course, drives more users away from competitors and to Google.

Second, in 2010 and again more recently, Google blocked Microsoft’s new Windows Phones from operating properly with YouTube. Google has enabled its own Android phones to access YouTube so that users can search for video categories, find favorites, see ratings, and so forth in the rich user interfaces offered by those phones. It’s done the same thing for the iPhones offered by Apple, which doesn’t offer a competing search service.

Unfortunately, Google has refused to allow Microsoft’s new Windows Phones to access this YouTube metadata in the same way that Android phones and iPhones do. As a result, Microsoft’s YouTube “app” on Windows Phones is basically just a browser displaying YouTube’s mobile Web site, without the rich functionality offered on competing phones. Microsoft is ready to release a high quality YouTube app for Windows Phone. We just need permission to access YouTube in the way that other phones already do, permission Google has refused to provide.

Third, Google is seeking to block access to content owned by book publishers. This was underscored in federal court in New York last week, in the decision involving Google’s effort to obtain exclusive and unfettered access to the large volume of so-called “orphan books–books for which no copyright holder can readily be found. Under Google’s plan only its search engine would be able to return search results from these books. As the federal court said in rejecting this plan, “Google’s ability to deny competitors the ability to search orphan books would further entrench Google’s market power in the online search market.” This is an important initial step under U.S. law, but it needs to be reinforced by similar positions in Europe and the rest of the world.

Fourth, Google is even restricting its customers’–namely, advertisers’–access to their own data. Advertisers input large amounts of data into Google’s ad servers in the course of managing their advertising campaigns. This data belongs to the advertisers: it reflects their decisions about their own business. But Google contractually prohibits advertisers from using their data in an interoperable way with other search advertising platforms, such as Microsoft’s adCenter.

This makes it much more costly for Google’s advertisers to run portions of their campaigns with any competitor, and thus less likely that they will do so. That is a significant problem because most advertisers figure that they have to advertise first with Google. If it’s too expensive to port their advertising campaign data to competing advertising platforms, many won’t do it. Competing search engines are left with less relevant ads, and less revenue. And while this restraint isn’t visible to consumers, its effects are nonetheless felt across the Web. Advertising revenue is the economic propellant fueling the billions of dollars needed for ongoing search investments. By reducing competitors’ ability to attract advertising revenue, this restriction strikes at the heart of a competitive market.

Fifth, this undermining of competition is reflected in concerns that go beyond Google’s control over content. One of the ways that search engines attract users is through distribution of search boxes through Web sites. Unfortunately, Google contractually blocks leading Web sites in Europe from distributing competing search boxes. It is obviously difficult for competing search engines to gain users when nearly every search box is powered by Google. Google’s exclusivity terms have even blocked Microsoft from distributing its Windows Live services, such as email and online document storage, through European telecommunications companies because these services are monetized through Bing search boxes.

Finally, we share the concerns expressed by many others that Google discriminates against would-be competitors by making it more costly for them to attain prominent placement for their advertisements. Microsoft has provided the Commission with a considerable body of expert analysis concerning how search engine algorithms work and the competitive significance of promoting or demoting various advertisements.

Over the past year, a growing number of advertisers, publishers, and consumers have expressed to us their concerns about the search market in Europe. They’ve urged us to share our knowledge of the search market with competition officials. As they’ve pointed out, the stakes are high for the European economy. On any given day, more than half of all Europeans use the Internet, and more than 90 percent of them look for information about goods and services on the Web. Indeed, the European Commission’s Digital Agenda made clear that commerce is moving online, where two-thirds of Europeans begin their shopping process. It’s therefore critical that search engines and online advertising move forward in an open, fair and competitive manner.

There of course will be some who will point out the irony in today’s filing. Having spent more than a decade wearing the shoe on the other foot with the European Commission, the filing of a formal antitrust complaint is not something we take lightly. This is the first time Microsoft Corporation has ever taken this step. More so than most, we recognize the importance of ensuring that competition laws remain balanced and that technology innovation moves forward.

We readily appreciate that Google should continue to have the freedom to innovate. But it shouldn’t be permitted to pursue practices that restrict others from innovating and offering competitive alternatives. That’s what it’s doing now. And that’s what we hope European officials will assess and ultimately decide to stop.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

That program, dubbed SnapTax, is off to a quick start, having notched 350,000 downloads in less than a month.

However, CEO Brad Smith said he knows that Intuit has a huge opportunity–and challenge–in the shift from a desktop-centered world to one ruled by mobile devices.

Over the last year and a half, the company has gone from essentially no mobile presence to one with more than a dozen initiatives, including a number of iPhone and Android apps as well as an SMS-based service in India that provides small-business owners ways to easily connect with their customers via mobile phone. Intuit’s SMS products in India also allow farmers to compare the prices nearby markets are offering for their crops, a feature that the company says has enabled small farmers to get, on average, 20 percent higher prices.

On Tuesday, the company is announcing its latest move–an expansion of its Mint.com iPhone app to allow for accounts to be created and fully updated from the phone (see screenshot).

It’s part of what CEO Brad Smith said is a recognition that the company not only needs to create mobile counterparts to its desktop and Web products, but in many cases also needs to offer the younger generation a mobile-only option. On Mint, for example, half of all interactions are already happening on the phone, as opposed to via the Web.

“We never would have guessed,” Smith said. However, the company has been spending a lot of time both interviewing consumers in Mountain View and meeting them on the go at places like Starbucks. Those meetings and other conversations have led Smith to shift the company’s focus. Initially, he was focused on a world where customers needed to enter their information only once. Now he is focused on creating apps that, in some cases, means a user will never type in information. SnapTax, for example, uses a smartphone’s camera to digitize tax forms and then uses character recognition to enter the text, with a customer having only to make sure the information is accurate and then answer a few questions.

“That mobile-only world is out there,” Smith said. “We’ll have to think differently.”

The opportunity is also a challenge. After forcing out competitors like Microsoft on the desktop and then acquiring Mint.com–a top Web-based finance rival–the company now sees challenges from smaller, mobile-only rivals like Square. The key, Intuit said, is the fact that it isn’t relying on the phone to do the heavy lifting. Instead, it’s using the iPhone and other devices to tie into its vast existing Web services. That, say Smith and others, gives the company a scale that its competitors can’t match. Intuit’s QuickBooks, for example, already handles one in 12 U.S. payroll accounts.

Intuit also offers services to community banks and credit unions, which in turn enable their customers to access their accounts over any phone or carrier.

Still, Smith said the company knows it needs to gain new skills and gain them rapidly. The result is that nearly every team is working on something mobile, with many of them comparing notes on what is clicking with early users. In addition to full products like SnapTax, the company also has a number of public apps on a labs site that handle everything from tracking mileage and timesheets, to Lasso–a tool for businesses to create mobile deals and promote them using Facebook.

On the horizon is a feature that will allow small businesses using its GoPayment service to process checks by taking a picture of them with a phone–much like USAA and Chase customers are able to do with their personal accounts. In response to Square, Intuit has also been giving out free credit card readers and offering a service with no up-front or monthly fees, albeit with a slightly higher transaction charge than its service for larger-volume customers. That offer is scheduled to end this month, but is likely to be extended.

The company is also trying to make sense of the opportunity created by tablets like the iPad and devices based on Android. Last week, for example, it showed how GoPayment running on the Honeycomb version of Android can take advantage of the larger-screen real estate to allow users to do more than just process payments on mobile, turning the tablet into something akin to a visual cash register.

Intuit’s employees also have been doing a lot of mobile stuff in their spare time. Intuit, much like Google, allows workers to spend a fraction of their time on pet projects. Some are potential new businesses, while a bunch are internal tools, including one notable app that calculates the cost of a meeting by adding up the salaries of all the people scheduled to attend.

But despite its progress, Smith and team aren’t satisfied.

“We’ve scratched the surface,” says CTO Tayloe Stansbury. “We’ve got a long journey in front of us.”

Indeed. Smith said that if he were grading the company on the progress it has made based on where it started, he said it might merit a 7 on a scale of one to 10. But that, he said, is not the scale he is using.

“If I score us where we need to be, I’d give us a three,” he said.

Among the phones that Sony alleges are infringing on its technology are the Accolate, Encore, enV Touch, Glance, Lotus Elite, Neon, Quantum and Rumor Touch.

The latest legal challenge adds to an already crowded docket of wireless competitors making patent-related claims. Just a partial list of the court battles has Nokia against Apple, Motorola against Microsoft, Apple against HTC and Oracle against Google.

Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith predicted last month that the various players will probably agree on some sort of appropriate royalty streams covering modern smartphones. in the meantime, it looks like the lawyers for all the cellphone makers will remain gainfully employed in 2011.

The move follows Apple’s suits against Nokia as well as Nokia’s earlier suits against Apple in U.S. court, and is part of a growing docket of cases that will have almost every cellphone maker as either plaintiff, defendant or both.

The latest actions were filed in the U.K., Germany and the Netherlands, and allege that the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, among other products, infringe on Nokia’s technology.

“These actions add 13 further Nokia patents to the 24 already asserted against Apple in the US International Trade Commission and the Delaware and Wisconsin Federal courts,” Nokia VP of intellectual property Paul Melin said in a statement. “The Nokia inventions protected by these patents include several which enable compelling user experiences. For example, using a wiping gesture on a touch screen to navigate content, or enabling access to constantly changing services with an on-device app store, both filed more than ten years before the launch of the iPhone.”

The Nokia filings relate to a number of different areas, from antenna structures to app stores to noise suppression and displays.

An Apple spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

At the moment, there is a lot of litigation around cellphone technology. To list just a few of the big cases, Apple is suing HTC, Oracle is suing Google, and Microsoft and Motorola are suing each other.

At a dinner last month, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith predicted that eventually there will be some sort of understanding of who is owed what in royalties for a modern smartphone. For now, though, it’s just a good time to be an intellectual property lawyer.

At a dinner with reporters on Monday night, Microsoft top lawyer Brad Smith said that the company also sees a chance to make money from its vast pool of smartphone-related patents. He wouldn’t quantify the revenue opportunity, but conceded it doesn’t expect to be able to get as much per phone as it does when someone uses its software.

That said, the overall market opportunity from patents might still be bigger, especially when you consider Microsoft’s paltry share of the phone market today.

Smith declined to put a total dollar figure on the patent opportunity or say how much it might equate to on a per-phone basis.

“We would be hard-pressed to get more for patents than we get for software,” he said. However, Smith also agreed that the patent revenue could eventually be vastly larger than what Microsoft has made to date by licensing Windows Mobile and now Windows Phone 7.

“We’d still rather sell software,” he said, but added, “either way, it gives us an opportunity to recoup [our] costs.”

At the moment, there is chaos in the phone patent arena, with Apple suing HTC, Microsoft suing Motorola and Oracle suing Google, to list just a partial court docket. However, Smith said he would not be at all surprised to see things shake out in the next couple of years into a manageable patent licensing arrangement, not unlike the one that exists with the radio portion of a cellphone today.

About $20 per modern phone goes to patents, with the lion’s share of that going to Qualcomm. On the smartphone side, Smith said Microsoft and Apple hold the lion’s share of the intellectual property.

“I think there is a good chance the industry will work through the patent issues over the next several years,” he said.

While Smith said he can’t speak for Apple, he said that Microsoft is actively interested in licensing its patents, noting the company’s agreement with Taiwanese cellphone maker HTC (a company that makes Android devices, as well as those running Microsoft’s mobile operating system).

“By entering into an agreement with HTC, we effectively signaled we are open for business when it comes to licensing,” Smith said.

Smith noted that Motorola and HTC, together, account for most of the Android market. This is probably the most fertile patent ground for Microsoft, since Apple and Microsoft have a patent-swap deal that covers some technologies and also both hold a fair bit of intellectual property in the area.

The generally affable Smith was not all sunshine and rainbows, however: “If we can’t get a reasonable royalty then we will seek an injunction.”

Of course, even if the monetary impact from licensing patents for phones could rival that of selling software, it lacks the strategic benefits Microsoft gets from having its operating system on phones.

Windows Phone 7 devices carry not only Microsoft’s operating system, but also versions of Office, Bing, Zune and Xbox Live.

The computing world is increasingly shifting to one in which key software runs not just on computers, but on a panoply of mobile devices as well. Microsoft itself has talked about the notion of “three screens and a cloud,” with the phone being one of those all-important three screens.

Smith says he expects the phone patent spat to spill over into the tablet arena as well, with similar issues at stake, although he expects any royalty amount to be higher for tablets than it is for smartphones.

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/20100727/qotd-323/ http://allthingsd.com/20100727/qotd-323/#comments Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:39:09 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=45595

“It means there will be no search competition in Japan and that Google will end up controlling all personal search information for all Japanese consumers and businesses.”

– Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith on Yahoo Japan’s Google deal

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100727/qotd-323/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091007/europe-and-microsoft-near-antitrust-accord/ http://allthingsd.com/20091007/europe-and-microsoft-near-antitrust-accord/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:15:13 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=26130 Microsoft’s proposed antitrust concessions, particularly its offer to give European computer users a choice of Web browsers, appear to have gone over well with the European Commission. This morning, the EC announced a market test of the browser ballot feature Microsoft plans to include in Windows 7. If it’s successful, the feature will become standard in European versions of Windows and resolve the ongoing antitrust case in which the EC accused the American firm of abusing its Windows monopoly.

“I’m absolutely of the opinion that this is a trustful deal that we’re making. I trust Microsoft,” Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said during a press conference this morning. “There can’t be a misunderstanding. Here is the final result of a long discussion over a long period.”

Microsoft (MSFT) was equally upbeat on the EC’s decision. “We welcome today’s announcement by the European Commission to move forward with formal market testing of Microsoft’s proposal relating to web browser choice in Europe,” General Counsel Brad Smith said in a statement. “We also welcome the opportunity to take the next step in the process regarding our proposal to promote interoperability with a broad range of our products.”

There were, however, a few that were not so welcoming of the move. Top among them, ECIS, an industry group whose members include Oracle (ORCL), Sun (JAVA), IBM (IBM) and Nokia (NOK). “ECIS notes that the settlement does not appear to deal with the inadequacies of Microsoft’s standards compliance, unfair pricing practices or other concerns related to patent abuse or standards manipulation,” the group said in a statement.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091007/europe-and-microsoft-near-antitrust-accord/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091007/europe-and-microsoft-near-antitrust-accord-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20091007/europe-and-microsoft-near-antitrust-accord-2/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:15:13 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=26130 Microsoft’s proposed antitrust concessions, particularly its offer to give European computer users a choice of Web browsers, appear to have gone over well with the European Commission. This morning, the EC announced a market test of the browser ballot feature Microsoft plans to include in Windows 7. If it’s successful, the feature will become standard in European versions of Windows and resolve the ongoing antitrust case in which the EC accused the American firm of abusing its Windows monopoly.

“I’m absolutely of the opinion that this is a trustful deal that we’re making. I trust Microsoft,” Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said during a press conference this morning. “There can’t be a misunderstanding. Here is the final result of a long discussion over a long period.”

Microsoft (MSFT) was equally upbeat on the EC’s decision. “We welcome today’s announcement by the European Commission to move forward with formal market testing of Microsoft’s proposal relating to web browser choice in Europe,” General Counsel Brad Smith said in a statement. “We also welcome the opportunity to take the next step in the process regarding our proposal to promote interoperability with a broad range of our products.”

There were, however, a few that were not so welcoming of the move. Top among them, ECIS, an industry group whose members include Oracle (ORCL), Sun (JAVA), IBM (IBM) and Nokia (NOK). “ECIS notes that the settlement does not appear to deal with the inadequacies of Microsoft’s standards compliance, unfair pricing practices or other concerns related to patent abuse or standards manipulation,” the group said in a statement.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091007/europe-and-microsoft-near-antitrust-accord-2/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090821/intuit-ceo-learning-to-dance-in-the-rain/ http://allthingsd.com/20090821/intuit-ceo-learning-to-dance-in-the-rain/#comments Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:58:22 +0000 Eric Savitz http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=14615 Intuit (INTU) CEO Brad Smith has a pretty stark view on the prospects for a near-term turn in the economy: he doesn’t think a recovery is likely the before the end of the company’s July 2010 fiscal year. Nonetheless, the company posted better-than-expected results for the fourth quarter ended July 2009–and he expects better results in 2010. Smith notes that the company posted 4 percent growth in FY 2009, and expects 4-8 percent growth in 2010.

“We don’t see the storm clouds going way,” he said in an interview with Tech Trader Daily. “We’re simply learning to dance in the rain.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090821/intuit-ceo-learning-to-dance-in-the-rain/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090804/yahoo-microsoft-regulatory-filings-begin-this-week-let-the-legal-game-playing-begin/ http://allthingsd.com/20090804/yahoo-microsoft-regulatory-filings-begin-this-week-let-the-legal-game-playing-begin/#comments Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:01:32 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=16965

After all the investor hubbub over the oh-no-they-didn’t deal between Yahoo and Microsoft starts to die down a bit, the pair are now embarking on the path that is the only way toward proving the efficacy of them joining together.

That would be getting a variety of state, federal and international regulators to say yes to the wide-ranging online advertising and search arrangement they announced last week so they can start making it work.

According to sources at both companies, a variety of filings will be made this week, including one to the Securities and Exchange Commission that should provide more details of the partnership.

When it was unveiled last Wednesday, the companies said Microsoft (MSFT) will run search technology for the two, while Yahoo (YHOO) will sell the premium search advertising.

That SEC filing could answer a number of questions some still have about the deal, such as whether there is a large break-up fee that Microsoft would pay Yahoo in case the deal is scuttled.

That’s just the outcome that Microsoft and Yahoo are trying to avoid.

“We think of it as an outreach effort to explain how we are creating a strong No. 2 to Google,” said one source close to the situation. “The main goal will be to show that a better competitor in the marketplace is a good thing.”

While the companies are prepping for opposition from Google (GOOG), sources close to the thinking at the dominant search company said it is more likely to be muted and indirect.

That’s especially true since a MicroHoo makes Google–currently under a lot more government scrutiny than ever before–look like less of a bully.

Thus, Google’s tactics would entail less direct statements and more pointing out the discrepancies between what Microsoft said when Google tried to get approval for a search deal with Yahoo last year and what it argues now.

“They will probably not be that obvious, but they will be there still,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to me, in an off-hand remark at the software giant’s Financial Analyst Meeting last week.

It’s a game of legal chicken that Ballmer knows well.

Already, for example, Microsoft and Yahoo execs have been aggressively reaching out to major publishers and advertisers to get their staunch support.

That included calls immediately after the deal was announced last Wednesday to such execs as Martin Sorrell of the WPP Group (WPPGY) and Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC Universal, a unit of GE (GE).

In Washington, D.C., both companies have legions of lawyers to try to make sure the Justice Department, which will review the case due to its antitrust implications, has all the information it might need.

And, more to the point, they want to avoid the debacle that took place when Yahoo and Google tried to get approval for their failed deal last year.

That deal was ended by Google after it became clear that Justice was going to fight it by arguing that top search companies hooking up hurt competition and stifled innovation.

In addition, there might be Congressional scrutiny, with possible hearings, similar to those held when the Yahoogle deal was pending, such as in the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee.

And, of course, there are actually independent groups concerned and they have also been in contact with regulators.

“There are questions that must be answered regarding the collection and sharing of consumer data by the two companies,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a D.C.-based group that works to promote consumer privacy and protection online, in a statement last week. “While the rationale for the deal is to provide some much needed competition to Google (and income for Yahoo), the further consolidation of the global digital advertising system should be a concern to Internet users, privacy advocates, online marketers, and competition regulators.”

Sources said Microsoft and Yahoo also plan to petition regulators in the European Union this week, which is likely to be most concerned about privacy issues involved in their union.

They will also be doing the same in other key countries worldwide, such as Korea, Taiwan and Brazil.

And, finally, given how involved state attorneys general became in beaching the Yahoo deal to partner with Google, they also will be starting outreach to key states, such as California, where Silicon Valley-based Yahoo is headquartered.

“Once again, it will be the Lawyer Employment Act of 2009,” joked one person close to the deal. “At least, that shows there is some economic benefit to this deal already.”

While we all wait in breathless regulatory anticipation, here are interviews I did at last year’s Senate hearings on Yahoogle, with lawyers from Google (David Drummond), Microsoft (Brad Smith) and Yahoo (Mike Callahan).

Incredibly, they are the very same lawyers who will be pretzeling themselves in entirely different shapes than they pretzeled themselves a year ago.

I would expect nothing less!

Here’s the video:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090804/yahoo-microsoft-regulatory-filings-begin-this-week-let-the-legal-game-playing-begin/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090729/liveblogging-the-yahoo-microsoft-search-deal-conference-call-the-carol-and-steve-show/ http://allthingsd.com/20090729/liveblogging-the-yahoo-microsoft-search-deal-conference-call-the-carol-and-steve-show/#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:32:17 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=16685

BoomTown was so glad we had this time together with Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer, just to have a laugh or sing a song about a major Web search and advertising deal.

I liveblogged the conference call, which I updated as it happened.

Did Ballmer scream and jump up and down? Did Carol say something naughty?

Or as the companies said:

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & REDMOND, Wash., Jul 29, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE)–Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft will host a conference call for accredited media and financial and industry analysts at 8:30 a.m. ET/5:30 a.m. PT today, July 29, 2009, to discuss the search agreement the companies recently announced. In addition, b-roll footage will be available. The satellite feed of b-roll footage will contain broadcast footage of remarks from Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, as well as corporate Yahoo! and Microsoft b-roll footage.

B-roll? More like, were Bartz and Ballmer on a roll?

To find out, read on!

5:28 am PDT: It was EARLY on the West Coast and we were being forced at first to listen to really sleepy music like you might hear in a dentist’s office.

Zzzzzzzzz…

5:34 am PDT: Memo Impresario Eric Brown was late! But, as soon as he gets on, the new Yahoo PR head began with an enthusiastic hello about the deal.

Bartz was up first, followed by Ballmer. They were clearly together in the same place, likely in Silicon Valley at some bunker.

“This is a great day for Yahoo,” she said. “It’s a game-changer and I am glad to finally be able to talk to you about it.”

Her patter was clearly scripted, but Bartz was pretty jaunty in her delivery.

And sassy enough to make the first of many dings to former Yahoo savior Google (GOOG)–not by name, but as either “the market leader” or “the competitor.”

Why not just go right to calling the search giant this deal is aimed at battling what Bartz really meant: The Borg.

Bartz stressed that this deal only covers search and the search ad business and not, say, display advertising.

And, she added, while Microsoft’s AdCenter technology will power the money-making, “search will continue to be an integral part of the Yahoo consumer experience.”

Boiling it down, Bartz said: “What this deal is really about for everyone is scale.”

Cue the next Google dig: “The combination of Microsoft and Yahoo search puts the choice back into the hands of consumers, increasingly concerned about the influence of a single player.”

Single player=Darth Vader.

5:40 am PDT: Ballmer was next. “I am so delighted to see [the deal] come to fruition,” he said.

He does not say much more except that he hoped it would “flourish and come to life over the many years.”

Ballmer sounded like someone speaking at a ribbon cutting of a copy store at the mall.

The livelier Bartz came back on, discussing the terms, hewing pretty much to what was already in the press release.

Microsoft’s AdCenter as technology. Integration. 10 years. No display deal. Separate user experience.

Now to the bucks, as Bartz noted, they add $500 million to Yahoo’s operating income, save $200 million in capital expenditures and improve annual operating cash flow by $275 million.

“At its full implementation,” she added. There is always a catch!

Bartz said Yahoo would use the money to invest in its other properties, although she was not specific.

Then, it was onto regulatory issues and getting this party started.

Bartz put on the brakes. “This deal will not happen overnight,” she said.

Actually, not even close. She predicted a closing in early 2010 and it being rolled out over the following three to six months.

Finally, Bartz thanked the tireless teams who did the deal. “With a lot of help from Steve and I,” she said and then quipped, “not always so.”

She and Ballmer were now sounding like a hip mom and dad.

5:45 am PDT: Question time!

The first one was about why the pair did not do a display deal and also how they were going to bridge the huge gap in how much each made per search compared to each other and Google.

Bartz said that the point was to keep the deal idiot-proof. “Frankly, we wanted it as straightforward and simple as possible,” she said.

Ballmer concurred: “We are taking a big bite here.”

As to the earnings gap in search, he said, “The deal in and of itself will let us close gap with the market leader.”

Ballmer tried not to say the word “Google,” but stumbled and did anyway.

The next question was about Bartz’s shift from her “boatloads of cash” quote–which she said, in an interview with me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference in late May, was a must for a deal with Microsoft–to her new “boatloads of value.”

Simple, she said, trying to gloss it over–Yahoo did not need a big cash payment up front (and it did not get it either).

“As far as we are concerned, the boatload of cash is us preserving our revenue line,” said Bartz.

The next question was about what Microsoft gets out of this deal.

“We clearly see an upside as execution really builds,” said Ballmer.

After more money questions, there is finally one on regulator issues.

Back to Google-bashing from Ballmer.

“I suspect the competitor who may not like more competition is Google,” he said.

Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith then jumped in and talked about working together and filings in D.C. and making the case.

He said he “looks forward to the debate,” which is just what a lawyer would say.

5:58 am PDT: Finally, the layoff question.

Bartz is clear here. Some Yahoo search employees will be dragooned over to Microsoft, some will move to other parts of Yahoo and some will be let go.

“Unfortunately, there are some redundancies,” said Bartz.

More financial questions, one on the mobile search market, one on innovation, one on scale and one on advertisers.

“Advertisers, especially smaller ones, want to make sure there is enough meaningful market for them and they don’t want to learn three platforms,” said Bartz. “They know how to enter into the Google system.”

She said “Google system” like she was talking about a gulag.

Meanwhile, Ballmer talked about how good it was to now be No. 2. Really, he did, since he was a distant No. 3 before this deal.

6:11 am PDT: Some technology question. Ballmer noted that the deal was not a “rip and replace” of Yahoo’s search for Microsoft. It will be an “integration.”

Next was a question about how this deal measured up to last year’s more money-laden offer by Microsoft.

Bartz said she didn’t just want an upfront payment, but a “true partnership,” with control over the Yahoo user interface and “real skin in the game.”

Ballmer called last year’s deal more investor-focused than operational. “The deal was different for Microsoft, not better,” he said, leaving out the cheaper part.

Finally, I get called on, and ask about who will lead the integration and how it will get done, so as not to create a huge distraction.

Bartz said it would be a “smooth transition…not that different from when Yahoo went from Overture to Panama.”

I did not have the heart to tell her that the transition of the Yahoo ad platform was anything but smooth and one of the reasons Yahoo got into the trouble it has gotten in.

Ballmer noted that the leadership that put together the deal is the leadership of the companies in the digital arena.

I also asked how the deal finally came together, especially after such historical rancor.

“It was like a snowball down a hill,” said Bartz.

But it was also a complex ball of ice, she added, noting “it was not a two-page term sheet.”

More like hundreds of pages. “There was not a high level of abstraction,” said Ballmer.

Finally, finding a kind of married groove–from that time before the random bickering sets in–Bartz noted that “dating is one thing, but having a partnership is another.”

She added: “The good news once we reached a point we believed to be advantageous, [we did a deal]…that’s how partnerships work.”

Well, exactly how it all works out, of course, still remains to be seen.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090729/liveblogging-the-yahoo-microsoft-search-deal-conference-call-the-carol-and-steve-show/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090325/intuit-helps-people-procrastinate-on-tax-returns/ http://allthingsd.com/20090325/intuit-helps-people-procrastinate-on-tax-returns/#comments Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:28:54 +0000 Ben Worthen http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=9828 One might think that the recession would compel people to file their tax returns earlier. Who couldn’t use the extra cash? But it turns out that Americans have never filed later.

That’s according to a man who knows something about taxes: Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit (INTU), which makes the popular TurboTax software. “Technology makes it easier to wait later,” Smith said in a recent interview.

About 35 million tax returns are done with software or online, and about 22 million of those are done through TurboTax. People have waited longer to file each year for the last decade, says Smith. There’s usually a small peak in late January when workers get their W-2s, then a lull in February and March. On April 14, the number of people filing through TurboTax shoots up and stays there until the deadline passes a day later.

Read the rest of this post

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090325/intuit-helps-people-procrastinate-on-tax-returns/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090113/new-blog-microsoft-on-the-issues-needs-some-sassier-issues-boomtown-to-the-rescue/ http://allthingsd.com/20090113/new-blog-microsoft-on-the-issues-needs-some-sassier-issues-boomtown-to-the-rescue/#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:00:58 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=8416

With a new administration coming into power, it makes a lot of sense for Microsoft to launch its new “Microsoft on the Issues” blog this week.

Covering legal and policy issues, the opening post by Microsoft (MSFT) General Counsel Brad Smith noted:

Today we are launching ‘Microsoft on the Issues’ to open another, more direct line of communication that will enable us to quickly and succinctly provide our perspective on the pressing technology matters of the day. We do not want this to be a one-way conversation. We want to create a transparent dialogue with readers and stakeholders. We want to enhance our participation in discussions that propel policy-making at local, national and international levels.”

But, so far, with only two posts and few comments, it’s a tad dry–and, by that, I actually mean dull–and in desperate need of some spicy sauce to jazz up the joint.

Here are some modest BoomTown suggestions:

Never seen before behind-the-scenes photos of Microsoft honcho Bill Gates cracking wise with the legal team during the software giant’s antitrust trial in the late 1990s!

CEO Steve Ballmer’s personal ruminations in a “BOMB-er” blog on the dangers of Google (GOOG) dominance over search–the uncensored version!

A legal argument about how Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang should be declared incompetent for not taking Microsoft’s very, very, very generous offer. (Title: “Is It Something We Said?”)

Microsoft’s collection of the outtakes from the Jerry Seinfeld commercials, with a very special essay about the Constitutional right to be extremely weird.

No?

I guess, as Smith wrote, it will be a “wide range of issues, from broadband access, online privacy and data portability to intellectual property protection, competition law, international trade and immigration.”

Also, he promises to write about the “next wave in the computing revolution and its potential to use the power of software and the Internet in new ways to enhance choice for consumers, businesses and governments.”

Thus, the first post–on workforce development and skills training by Global Corporate Affairs VP Pamela Passman.

In any case, I am still waiting for that Ballmer blog.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090113/new-blog-microsoft-on-the-issues-needs-some-sassier-issues-boomtown-to-the-rescue/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20080930/crawling-from-the-wreckage/ http://allthingsd.com/20080930/crawling-from-the-wreckage/#comments Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:20:16 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=5918

Our industry is not immune to what goes on in the global economy. And yet as I travel, given the current circumstances, people still see a certain buoyancy in the market.”

– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Sept. 26, 2008

Wall Street’s 777-point selloff Monday–one of its worst days since 1929–hit many tech stocks harder even than the overall market on Monday. Said Ross Sandler, senior Internet analyst at RBC Capital Markets, “Tech took it on the chin disproportionately.”

Indeed, it did. And a couple of other places as well, from the looks of things.

A quick overview of the carnage:

• Amazon (AMZN) fell 10 percent to $63.35
• Apple (AAPL) fell 17.9 percent to $105.26
• Cisco (CSCO fell 8.5 percent to $21.79
• Comcast (CMCSA) fell 13 percent to $18.01
• Dell (DELL) fell 9.4 percent to $15.41, a new 10-year low
• eBay (EBAY) fell 12 percent to $19.95
• Google (GOOG) fell 12 percent to $381.00, a new 2-year low
• Intel (INTC) fell 10.1 percent to $17.27, a new 2-year low
• Microsoft (MSFT) fell 8.7 percent to $25.01
• Oracle (ORCL) fell 9 percent to $18.77
• Qualcomm (QCOM) fell 13 percent to $39.88
• Research In Motion (RIMM) fell 12.8 percent to $61.73
• Sirius XM (SIRI) fell 18 percent to $0.62
• Sun (JAVA) fell 11.7 percent to $6.75, a new 13-year low
• Yahoo (YHOO) fell 10.8 percent, to $16.88, a new 5-year low

Seems the tech industry “buoyancy” to which Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer referred last week was more of a noneffervescence. Certainly, that’s the impression one gets from reading the statement Microsoft just issued calling on Congress to revisit its vote against the financial bailout plan. “Microsoft strongly urges members of the U.S. House of Representatives to reconsider and to support legislation that will re-instill confidence and stability in the financial markets,” General Counsel Brad Smith said in a statement. “This legislation is vitally important to the health and preservation of jobs in all sectors of the economy of Washington State and the nation, and we urge Congress to act swiftly.”

What was that you were saying about “buoyancy” again, Steve?

Still, to be fair, the tech sector does appear to be gaining some ground in early trading today. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 2 percent to 2,027, reclaiming some of Monday’s ugly 9 percent loss. Apple shares are up 2.7 percent at $106.70 as I write this. Google shares are up 4.5 percent at $398.06. Microsoft is up 2.5 percent at $25.63. Even Yahoo is on an upward track, up 2.43 percent at $17.29.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080930/crawling-from-the-wreckage/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20080716/yahooglesoft-lawyers-speak/ http://allthingsd.com/20080716/yahooglesoft-lawyers-speak/#comments Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:59:39 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=2357 Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Yesterday, BoomTown went to Washington, D.C. to see lawyers from Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo and Google face off in Senate hearings about the controversial search advertising outsourcing deal recently struck between Yahoo (YHOO) and Google (GOOG).

Titled “The Google-Yahoo Agreement and the Future of Internet Advertising,” the hearings were called by the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights and chaired by Sen. Herb Kohl (D., Wis.).

As I expected, the hearings on the Yahoo agreement with Google (transcripts of testimonies here) to outsource some of its ad search business were a lot of show and not so much content.

There was also a hearing for the House’s Task Force on Competition Policy and Antitrust Laws, called “Competition on the Internet,” which featured the same trio of execs.

And here’s a video of BoomTown chatting up Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond, Microsoft’s General Counsel Brad Smith and Michael Callahan, general counsel for Yahoo, right after the Senate hearings were over.

[ See post to watch video ]

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080716/yahooglesoft-lawyers-speak/feed/ 0