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In this inaugural edition of Eye To Eye, Mark Cuban and Eric Jackson answer the following question about Web giant Yahoo.

Yahoo, which is hemorrhaging senior execs, just laid off 2,000 employees and underwent a massive restructuring under CEO Scott Thompson. Meanwhile, it’s embroiled in a questionable patent lawsuit/countersuit with Facebook. What is the one major thing you think it needs to do to turn itself around?

If RIM’s layoffs addressed any of the concerns orbiting the company, the market didn’t show it. Perhaps that’s because three-quarters of the 2,000 jobs eliminated were created in the past six months. As Ironfire Capital founder Eric Jackson notes, RIM ended its fourth quarter in February with 17,500 employees. If the 2,000 layoffs the company announced Monday dropped its headcount to 17,000, then 1,500 of them were essentially new hires brought on board during the company’s precipitous decline.

Says Jackson, “In other words, that 11 percent workforce reduction is really just a 2.8 percent reduction of RIM’s pre-February workforce levels.”

Sacking 2,000 employees isn’t so much a sign of RIM coming to terms with the grim reality it faces as it is an indication of just how scattered its leadership is. These layoffs read more like the correction of a staffing error than they do a decisive move to push RIM toward a rebound. And really, they do nothing to address the long-term issues that have folks so worried about the future of the company. Cutting expenses in the face of declining revenue is a wise move, but it doesn’t make RIM’s handsets any more compelling, its strategy any more cogent or its leadership any more reliable.

As I wrote earlier this year, “RIM’s hopeless downward spiral is the result of missteps and flaws that go way beyond its inability to meet guidance. RIM has failed to innovate. It has failed to execute. It has failed to understand the consumer market, which is increasingly informing enterprise support and purchasing decisions. And its comedy-of-errors management has consistently refused to take responsibility for those failures, because it doesn’t seem to see them as a problem.”

And if you think that’s a bit too harsh, or unfair, consider this: In 2008 RIM was an $83 billion company. Its market cap as of market close Monday: $13.98 billion.

But Yahoo’s not languishing–or so it says.

At the company’s “Fall Product Runway” media event this morning, Yahoo announced plans for a slew of forthcoming updates to what it’s taken to paranoically describing as “habit-forming communications products.” Among them:

• Yahoo Mail Beta, the latest iteration of the company’s mail service. With a cleaner UI and updated back end, it promises to be faster and easier to use. Integrated support for Twitter and Facebook will allow users to manage at least a few of their social services directly from their in-boxes. Also included: Video, photo sharing tools, a new version of Yahoo Messenger and better spam tools (Yahoo claims its mail service will have 55 percent less spam than Gmail).

• Yahoo Search enhancements that promise “more visually compelling” news and entertainment-related searches that combine images, news articles, videos, tweets, events and ratings in search returns.

• Trending Now lists–trending stories presented as slideshows

• A Yahoo app for iPad designed to deliver a personalized Yahoo experience to Apple’s (APPL) tablet. Features Yahoo News, Mail, etc., as well as a handy Yahoo alarm clock.

• Rich content integration with Twitter.

• An improved Connected TV experience, thanks to new partnerships with content providers, social networks and TV manufacturers like Toshiba.

• Customized Content Ads: “Creative formats that leverage an advertiser’s robust content and enable social sharing”–whatever that means.

Interesting updates, I suppose, when they’re finally rolled out (Yahoo EVP Blake Irving says we won’t be able to use Twitter to comment on Yahoo pages until June 2011,), but nothing really transformative. Many of them seem to me table stakes really, and to tout them before they’re even live and so soon after the debut of Google (GOOG) Instant smells a little desperate. Odd that one of Irving’s big messages today is that Yahoo is becoming faster and more innovative and will be shipping products even more quickly than it has been. None of these products are even ready.

A parting shot: Asked “What is Yahoo?” during today’s Q&A session, Irving defined the company as follows:

“Yahoo is a global series of Web experiences delivered across a variety of devices that gives people what they want. It connects advertisers to a global audience. Yahoo is all about delivering experiences to individuals that make them engage with each other. Folks always ask, Is Yahoo a search company? A content company? A communications company? In a world where people only have so much time, we’d like to help them engage with the things that matter most to them.”

That’s got to be the world’s worst elevator pitch.

“I sold my YHOO stake, which I held through my hedge fund last month when it hit $20,” Jackson told Digital Daily. “I still own a small amount personally. I had no idea idea it would fall this much but I finally decided to stop pushing a rope by calling for change from the inside [as a shareholder]. I voted with my feet. This board has the blood of its shareholders on its hands, and I hope they wear that scarlet letter stigma for a long time.”

Asked to comment on Mithras Capital Partners proposal that Yahoo (YHOO) sell itself to Microsoft (MSFT) for $22 a share, Jackson had this to say: “If I was in Redmond, I’d say why not wait a few weeks and pick this company up for a couple of bucks?”  

“I sold my YHOO stake, which I held through my hedge fund last month when it hit $20,” Jackson told Digital Daily. “I still own a small amount personally. I had no idea idea it would fall this much but I finally decided to stop pushing a rope by calling for change from the inside [as a shareholder]. I voted with my feet. This board has the blood of its shareholders on its hands, and I hope they wear that scarlet letter stigma for a long time.”

Asked to comment on Mithras Capital Partners proposal that Yahoo (YHOO) sell itself to Microsoft (MSFT) for $22 a share, Jackson had this to say: “If I was in Redmond, I’d say why not wait a few weeks and pick this company up for a couple of bucks?”  

“It’s hard to believe the board could let this happen,” Jackson told the Associated Press. “I think they completely misconstrued the situation and thought, ‘Microsoft is rich, so let’s soak them.’ They were bluffing all the way and got caught.”

If Jackson hopes to make good on his threat, he’d best get cracking. Shareholders have only 10 days from the announcement of Yahoo’s annual meeting to nominate directors and Yahoo did just that this past Monday. That means Jackson has until May 15 to pull his slate together. Perhaps he can just borrow Microsoft’s (MSFT) …

“It’s hard to believe the board could let this happen,” Jackson told the Associated Press. “I think they completely misconstrued the situation and thought, ‘Microsoft is rich, so let’s soak them.’ They were bluffing all the way and got caught.”

If Jackson hopes to make good on his threat, he’d best get cracking. Shareholders have only 10 days from the announcement of Yahoo’s annual meeting to nominate directors and Yahoo did just that this past Monday. That means Jackson has until May 15 to pull his slate together. Perhaps he can just borrow Microsoft’s (MSFT) …