Here’s an interesting irony–Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will have her 99th day in office on the very one that the Internet giant will announce its first-quarter earnings: April 21, 2009 at 2 p.m. PST.

Technically, it will mean that she has been running Yahoo (YHOO) for 100 days, a time when most administrations get their first evaluation.

Thus, if it’s good enough for President Obama, it’s good enough for Bartz!

While most expect the results for the quarter to be weak, due to the econalypse, the overall verdict from BoomTown’s needling of Yahoos to give me info on their new leader recently: Love, love, love Bartz’s innate decisiveness, and wanting more of the same.

“She has an opinion and she is not afraid to use it,” joked one high-ranking Yahoo. “That is a big deal for a lot of people here who have wanted a CEO who is very forceful.”

And the only substantive negative: Some remain worried about her lack of Internet savvy, although most of those admit she has been a quick learner as the 100-day mark comes to a close.

In Yahoo’s case, 100 days has a special meaning–when he got his job in late 2007, former Yahoo CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang declared that he was going to give the troubled company a 100-day evaluation with “no sacred cows.”

The Yang-farmed bovines, as it turned out, just got fatter.

Under Bartz, more have been under the knife, as the hard-charging exec has started to really put her imprint on the company.

She has certainly talked tough since the meet-the-press conference on her very first day on Jan. 13.

Some memorable Bartz quotes were about Yahoo’s immediate needs, in her estimation: “some friggin’ breathing room” and “frankly, [the company] could use a little management.”

That kind of tough-lady, Annie-Get-Your-Gun quote-making has been Bartz’s signature, whether it be in folksy Friday memos she has sent out to staff or at the fourth-quarter earnings call in late January, only weeks into her tenure, when she declared:

“This is not a company that needs to be pulled apart and left for the chickens.”

Well, except for the management structure, which Bartz pulled right apart and reshuffled six weeks in.

Cleaning up and simplifying the complex reporting structure in an all-roads-lead-to-Carol set-up and tossing out the CFO were main points of the reorganization. Many at Yahoo expect there to be even more cuts in staff sooner than later, many sources said.

And there have also been departures of key staff, including: PR head Jill Nash, Zimbra founder Satish Dharmaraj and soon, high-ranking techie Venkat Panchapakesan.

Yang too, although he remains on the board, has not been present as much at the company.

Curiously, though, except for the new CMO, Elisa Steele–whose office is powerfully located right next to Bartz, as many Yahoos noted to me–there have been no further appointments for open positions for CFO, a new Customer Advocacy top exec and a new international head. Presumably, they are on the way.

Not that Bartz has not been busy–visiting Yahoo staff and clients all over–as well as finally finding time for a face-to-face meeting with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in Silicon Valley recently.

Before the recent meetings, in a classic negotiating tactic, Bartz (pictured here) has projected a disinterested, poker-faced attitude about the situation, even telling Yahoo staff in one meeting “that she plans to spend a lot of time investigating whether to sell Yahoo’s search business, but that her ‘gut’ was not to do that.”

Well, a sale of Yahoo’s search business might not happen, Bartz was only buying a little time in being so confident and projecting the affect that Yahoo had some leverage and a choice.

But that is exactly what she does not really have, given that Yahoo faces the prospect of spiraling costs to maintain a search share, even as it has a good chance of declining.

So, last week, the news–first reported here Friday–that Bartz was involved in preliminary talks with Microsoft (MSFT) about an extensive commercial advertising and search partnership–should have come as almost no surprise.

A re-engagement between the companies, after a bruising takeover battle that ended in tears all around, has been long hoped for by investors and other observers, given that both have struggled against the search behemoth that is Google (GOOG).

(Or, in a nickname that BoomTown is trying unsuccessfully to popularize: Googzilla.)

The talks–which are not about the software giant making another acquisition offer for Yahoo–are ongoing and might not lead anywhere, but it is in both sides’ interest to avoid that outcome.

“Yahoo has to do some kind of deal or Bartz will be facing a decline even she cannot manage,” said one person close to the situation. “And Microsoft, if it wants to compete in search, needs Yahoo’s share along with its own.”

Among the surprisingly innovative ideas being bandied about: Yahoo might take over all of Microsoft’s display and premium advertising business to sell along with its own, while Microsoft would run the search advertising business for the pair.

And, while the discussions could degenerate into chest-pounding and pointless jockeying, one assumes that Bartz gets the idea that Yahoo needs a lot of help–including from some rapprochement with Microsoft, from making its staff even leaner, from streamlining its product focus and from striking other significant partnerships.

Many inside and outside Yahoo certainly hope that spirit–and not the one from this video below of a fabulous scene of Betty Hutton and Howard Keel in the musical classic, “Annie Get Your Gun,” singing “Anything You Can Do”–prevails with Microsoft in the next 100 days.

In Yahoo’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call earlier this week, new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz went out of her way to ho-hum all over the possibility of a search deal with Microsoft.

She even went as far as to not even mention its name when she referred to the laggard third player in market share.

And Bartz also tried to make it seem as if a recent meeting between Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock–as well as Time Warner (TWX) CEO Jeff Bewkes, who presides over the AOL online service–was fiction. (It was not.)

Of course, it was all cooked up and well-rehearsed by Bartz, who knows how to play the expectations game as well as anyone else, especially as she endeavors to come up to speed on the various prospects for Yahoo going forward.

One person who has been close to the situation said it best: “Anyone would have said the same regardless of their true position at this point.”

Indeed.

Of course, BoomTown’s favorite–and obviously well thought out–line was in answer to an analyst’s question on shareholder value. No surprise: Bartz insisted Yahoo as a whole was, in fact, an unappreciated pearl before swine.

Actually, she used another barnyard metaphor, in the grand tradition of former CEO Jerry Yang’s “sacred cow” debacle.

“This is not a company that needs to be pulled apart and left for the chickens,” said Bartz, using a phrase she said was from her Wisconsin upbringing.

My guess is that the savvy and slick Bartz left that farm behind a long, long time ago and was again using the folksy straight talk in some serious gamesmanship with Microsoft (MSFT) and anyone else.

And perhaps Yahoo (YHOO) is truly not chicken scratch, although a lot of horse sense will be needed in the next few months to make that so.

(No, I could not resist.)

And, employing a video I love, if Bartz ever does succumb to the charms of Microsoft, here’s what the pair might hope that flock of attack poultry would peck at next:

[UPDATED: H-P exec Todd Bradley has been a public company CEO, which I reflected below correctly.]

With Yahoo board Chairman Roy Bostock reportedly assuring investors and others that the company will have a CEO in place by the end of the year, it seems prudent for BoomTown to initiate an official Yahoo CEO Countdown.

After all, this column had a 100-Day No-Sacred-Cows Vision Quest to mark the time that Jerry Yang said he needed to give Yahoo a top-to-bottom look-see when he took over last summer as CEO.

Yang announced he was stepping down on Nov. 17, prompting the search for someone to lead Yahoo (YHOO) to the promised land where BoomTown countdowns are illegal.

But that’s not today, so here’s the 26-days-to-go update:

It looks like Yahoo has almost no chance to nab a top candidate, News Corp. (NWS) COO Peter Chernin. While Yang made nice and Bostock quickly lobbed in a call to get the well-known exec to come in and talk, several sources said Chernin declined even that.

Of course, moguls like Chernin are pros at not interviewing–one media player schooled me that you apparently never show interest in a job and only take it if a full offer is made, because if you don’t get it after chit-chatting, you look like a loser.

But I don’t think it is a slick feint on his part, even though Chernin is now engaged in contract renewal negotiations at News Corp. (which owns this Web site).

Consider: If you were Chernin, would you want to trade your powerful, well-paid, glamorous job in Hollywood and New York for what will surely be a slog of a job in Sunnyvale, and in a cubicle?

And Chernin has told many he is not interested in doing the job, although News Corp. would still love to do some sort of deal to combine its online assets, like MySpace, with Yahoo’s, as it almost did many times.

While Chernin did just take delivery on a Tesla, showing some clear geekiness, and he would be an exciting get for Yahoo, it’s the longest of shots.

The same is true for some other names that have been floated (by me!).

But several of the people are on the Yahoo board’s list too. And while things can change, it is more unlikely any of them will be the pick.

That includes former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig, who has a good life now as a media investor; former eBay exec and OpenTable CEO Jeff Jordan, who told his investors he does not want to be in the running and was sticking with the start-up’s IPO plans–if and when the economy recovers (although Yahoo could buy OpenTable and, thus, Jordan); former eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman, who could be running for governor of California; and former AOL CEO Jon Miller, who is not secretly buying Yahoo, but who could not be its leader anyway, since he is bound by a Time Warner (TWX) noncompete agreement until the end of March.

Another sticking point: The Yahoo board has limited the pool by a list of six criteria that it has drawn up, with the No. 1 being a CEO candidate has to have public company CEO experience.

If enforced, that nixes some folks, like Google (GOOG) exec Tim Armstrong. In addition, Yahoo President Sue Decker getting the nod is even more unlikely, for that and other reasons, according to many.

From my lists, that leaves DoubleClick head David Rosenblatt (his company is now owned by Google); Demand Media’s Richard Rosenblatt; former Viacom (VIA) head Tom Freston; former CNET CEO Shelby Bonnie; Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) exec Todd Bradley; and Juniper Networks (JNPR) CEO Kevin Johnson, who was the Microsoft exec who was key in the Yahoo takeover attempt there.

All have reasons not to either want or be able to take the Yahoo CEO job, so that means there could be a dark horse candidate. (I am now drawing up yet another list of qualified public CEO tech and media execs).

Here’s one: Yesterday, after it was announced he was stepping down from Microsoft (MSFT) in the wake of its hire of former Yahoo tech star Qi Lu as its online leader, I noted that I liked Brian McAndrews for the job.

Plus, the former CEO of aQuantive, which Microsoft bought for $6 billion last year, would be a delicious irony. But those who have talked to him told me McAndrews–who did want the digital head job at Microsoft and was left hanging by the software giant’s CEO Steve Ballmer–seems intent on taking time off now.

Alternatively, one of the two Yahoo board members, Maggie Wilderotter or John Chapple, both have the public company CEO checked off.

Personally, I am betting on one of them as CEO, although I believe it would be better if Yahoo picked a fresh outside choice.

So do a lot of execs remaining at Yahoo, most of whom visibly roll their eyes at the idea of a board member taking over, considering the record of the directors so far in guiding Yahoo’s fortunes.

That’s why the board–which definitely has not distinguished itself by any criteria so far in Yahoo’s long fall from grace–should try to get it right this time, as Yahoo can’t take any more of the way it has been running the show so far.

Here’s a bright spot in Yahoo’s third-quarter earnings announcement later today: Sources told BoomTown that the company will not announce a specific number of layoffs tomorrow, although it will give an overall percentage of employees and costs to be cut.

In other words, you get to practice your long division and multiplication skills! Fun!

(For those who want to cheat, as I previously reported, it will still be about 1,500 jobs cut.)

Other than that, of course, when Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang gets on the horn at at 2 p.m. Pacific Time, the outlook is likely to be a wall-to-wall glumfest.

Well, no wonder, given what is likely to be on the agenda: a very bad economy, a vicious hit to display advertising, a sagging stock, layoffs whacking the already dispirited employee base, a lugubriously-paced deal to possibly merge with AOL, no Microsoft interest in bidding $31 a share for Yahoo again until hell freezes over and its regulatory-troubled search ad outsourcing deal with Google.

And, most of all, whither the management tenure of Yahoo’s Yang.

BoomTown is officially bummed.

In any case, here are the particulars to watch out for:

The Numbers: A consensus of analysts has expected Yahoo (YHOO) to have $1.37 billion in net revenue and income of nine cents per share for the three-month period, although some are predicting that Yahoo will miss those estimates by a penny.

More depressing, due to the very poor economic outlook and Yahoo’s reliance on display advertising over more recession-proof search ads, most expect Yahoo execs to give very weak guidance for the upcoming fourth quarter and perhaps beyond.

How low can it go? Think lower.

The Stock: Could Yahoo shares get hit any harder? Now hovering in the $12 range, the stock is down 45 percent for the year.

This gives one of the Internet’s most trafficked sites a market value of only about $18 billion.

And, yes, its shares could also drop even further, especially if Yahoo’s story is still sadder today and new ideas from its execs to fix things are not well received.

The Layoffs: As I said, more staff will be cut (and I expect other key and very disgusted employees to also soon be heading out the door on their own two feet too), numbering about 1,500. Many cuts will come in departments like HR and Finance.

But, sources said, these sorry souls have not been officially selected yet and true departures will not start immediately.

While most think Yahoo has long needed to tighten up its troop count, let’s be clear: You can’t cut your way to growth and the innovation needed to remake Yahoo.

The AOL Deal: What is truly striking is how long it is taking for this deal to be consummated. Oh, Yahoo and AOL are still jabbering away, sources said, which makes this dealmaking seems longer than this endless presidential election.

Would it be great if they announced it today? Yes, it would be, given both Yahoo and AOL owner Time Warner (TWX) desperately need a new story to spin to get the focus off their sorry current plots.

In fact, if these two were Warner Bros. television productions, Yahoo and AOL would be “Cold Case” and “Without a Trace.” Except, you know, those two shows are actual hits.

As I have written many times, Yahoo should only do the deal if it can get the much-faster-dwindling AOL on the cheap. And AOL? It should take cheap and be thankful for it.

A Microsoft Rebid: As much as journalists continue to misconstrue Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s remarks last week about still being interested in a merger with Yahoo (he was speaking specifically of a search deal), Microsoft does not seem to be rushing back to the table.

I think Microsoft (MSFT) would if an AOL-Yahoo combination is ever struck, trying for that elusive search deal, of course.

But otherwise, I think Ballmer is content to let Yahoo swing in the wind a little longer. After all, his feelings were hurt by Yang’s rejection!

Of course, if he were sensible and not quite such an emotional exec, Ballmer would swoop in and grab the company at its low, low price, hip-check Google (GOOG) out of the search ad deal before the Justice Department does and look like a white knight to investors for doing it.

Which would be a first for the black-hatted Microsoft–sort of like brain-chewing Sylar turning out to be the good guy on this very odd third season of “Heroes.”

Then again, mutating the words of Woody Allen: The heart doesn’t want what it doesn’t want.

The Most Sacred Cow of All: Last year in his first quarterly earnings call as CEO, in a phrase he surely regrets uttering, Yang said he would undertake a 100-day hard look at Yahoo and that there were “no sacred cows.”

As it turned out, there were a lot of them, none of which were touched, most especially Yang himself.

Now, I like Yang personally a lot. More than a lot–he is a decent and thoughtful person, a true Web visionary and has a deeply-held heartfelt belief that he has the skills Yahoo needs to make it through this current period of crisis.

It is a crisis the company has seen before–things looked dicey back in the 2000 to 2002 period too, and Yang and others powered through to eventually pull Yahoo forward.

But that was then and this is now. The problems Yahoo faces are of a quantum level of difficulty, and Yang needs to clearly articulate once and for all why his investors and employees should put up with any more of his leadership.

In doing so, he can’t blame the economy or make excuses related to Microsoft’s takeover machinations or claim it is super-hard to turn around a company.

He has to give investors, employees, Wall Street, the media and consumers a better reason to stick with him than his heart bleeds purpler than anyone.

And that means a clear, bold, decisive and stone-cold plan to get Yahoo to a place of success and innovation it surely could be.

With its amazing products, huge traffic and still-great brand, anyone can see Yahoo can still be made into a really amazing company again.

And, if Yang can’t do that, he has to have to guts to find someone who can.

Could the new and improved Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang actually manage to beat back the proxy fight being waged against him by activist investor Carl Icahn?

It increasingly looks that way, with only 12 days to go until Yahoo’s annual meeting on Aug. 1.

But exactly which Yang will be running Yahoo (YHOO), if he does win, is probably the most important question shareholders need to ask.

Will it be the seemingly energetic Yang of the past two weeks, invigorated by the battle with Icahn and his new best friend and Yahoo foe, Microsoft (MSFT)?

Or will it be the other Yang?

Because for months and months now, since Microsoft waged its takeover bid on the Internet company he founded, the woe-is-me vibe emanating from Yang has been working the last nerve of anyone paying attention to the proceedings.

Given that this vibe was combined with a kind of cave dweller PR strategy of not speaking publicly–other than releasing an indignant, noncapitalized letter every now and then about the situation–some questioned Yang’s ability to gin up the kind of passion needed to bring Yahoo back from its current straits.

Even before the Microsoft parry in February, the ho-hum mood had trickled down to the troops, causing lower morale, too many departures and a general feeling–deserved or not–that Yahoo has been circling the drain for much too long under its current lackluster leadership.

And, let us not forget the drippy stock performance either.

And while BoomTown, especially, has to give both Yang and also Yahoo President Sue Decker much credit for appearing onstage at our sixth D: All Things Digital conference in May, most who saw the appearance (we posted the whole thing last week, starting here) were not blown away by the performance, considering it too enervated.

What then, do we make of the current round of pugnacious, dare-we-say, passionate, and, as it seems, pretty effective moves Yang has made this week to ward off the attacks of Icahn and Microsoft?

I should have gotten clued-in to the shift when Yang actually made contact with me on July 9, after being out-of-touch for many, many moons, presumably due to pique over my 100-day Sacred Cow Countdown (he started it!).

As it happened, I was in Seattle visiting a lot of Pacific Northwest companies, including Microsoft, when he called.

After our discussion, I published these choice quotes from Yang in a post on July 10, titled “Jerry Yang’s Pledge: Not on My Watch”:

“I think handing over the company to Carl Icahn for the express purpose of hoping he can negotiate a complex deal with Microsoft is a big mistake for shareholders. This is particularly true since Icahn has no plan B and therefore will have no leverage and will be dealing with Microsoft from a position of weakness.

“Furthermore, Microsoft’s interest in Yahoo has been inconsistent at best and they refuse to even put a firm proposal on the table. Their motivations are suspect and there is simply no good reason to think they will actually show up at the end of the day. And then what will shareholders be left with? A weakened, Icahn-controlled Yahoo.”

Then Yang went into overdrive over that next weekend as Yahoo managed to make a new Microsoft search proposal–which was really very, very generous–look radioactive by loudly declaring that Icahn’s taking over of Yahoo was crazy-glued to the plan.

It was not, but no amount of Microsoft spinning could undo the damage of what looked like a goofy power play by Icahn and Microsoft.

That was followed at the end of last week by the news that Yahoo had convinced one big investor, Bill Miller of Legg Mason Capital Management (who has always been a supporter of Yang and especially, Decker), to back the current board.

Legg Mason owns about 4.4 percent of Yahoo.

While not saying it was final, Miller noted that it was his intention to stick with Yahoo’s leadership, adding that he also wanted Yahoo and Icahn to settle their differences before the annual meeting.

Of course, Miller still tried to get Microsoft back to the table, noting, “If Microsoft wants to acquire Yahoo, it can make the terms and conditions of its offer public.”

One can hope, Bill! (Actually, as I have written many times, Microsoft should make that move if it really intends to compete against Google.)

But, best of all, was Yahoo sticking a big fat banner on its much-trafficked home page Friday, alerting its users–most of whom were really just minding their own business and trying to get their daily horoscopes.

Nonetheless, in a box that flashed various outrages about the proxy fight, Yahoo linked to a presentation that pretty much called Icahn a Luddite. It included a quote attributed to him from The Wall Street Journal: “It’s hard to understand these technology companies.”

You can say that again, Carl!

And Yang did say it again in video message to Yahoo employees, noting, “We’re taking full advantage of the power of our network to remind our stockholders why voting for Carl Icahn’s board of directors is a bad choice.”

Ah, there is nothing like a technically clueless billionaire as an enemy to get Yang’s blood boiling!

Apparently, that has helped employee morale too. This weekend, I have heard from several execs contemplating leaving, tired of waiting for the 12th shoe to drop, who noted that more passion from Yang was helping.

“People feel like he is showing some strength, which you never see,” said one. “It sounds corny, but we want someone we believe in.”

Well, we’ll see if institutional investors believe, after they get a recommendation midweek from the large proxy-advisory service ISS Governance Services, which Yang and other Yahoo execs and board members visited last week to make their case.

That will come one day after Yahoo releases its second-quarter earnings on Tuesday, which I am sure will be decent, as they just have to be, considering the hubbub around Yahoo.

(And you can be sure Yahoo CFO Blake Jorgensen is working overtime this weekend, adding in all he can to make the picture as pretty as possible.)

It’ll be a big week for Yahoo, as usual, made bigger if Icahn does not mount an effective offense, such as releasing a cogent plan of his own and showing he has some managers in the wings who can run Yahoo if he were to get the reins.

Which Yang is not showing any signs of giving up anytime soon.

I fully expect Yang to get even more hopped up this week with more speeches to employees, more visits to shareholders and perhaps even more calls to the press. (BoomTown is waiting by the phone!)

Of course, this is all just show. And while it’s a good one, as I said, the most important thing everyone has to keep in mind is what this all means after Aug. 1.

So I have some questions for Yang:

Does he have the energy and vision and, most important, management chops, to really move the needle at Yahoo and make the kinds of changes it needs?

And what are those changes? More of the same direction (more social, more open) or perhaps a much more radical focus on core businesses like content and communications?

And what about search, a losing game as Yahoo inevitably will be crushed between Google (GOOG) and Microsoft? And what about fending off that pair’s new focus on display advertising, where Yahoo does excel?

Will Yang, if he does not think he has what it takes, be willing to step aside? And does that mean Decker will become CEO, or will he bring in new outside execs who have not been part of the problems of the past?

I could go on and on, of course, but it pretty much boils down to one key question:

Is the Yang who acts like he can win really here to stay?

As a holiday gift to all readers, BoomTown will refrain from making any big pronouncements about what’s coming in 2008 in the tech sector, because, um, well, I have no idea what’s coming in 2008 in the tech sector. No one could have Miss Cleo-ed all the twists and turns of 2007, for certain.

Could we have predicted a tiny start-up with negligible revenues but explosive growth could be valued at $15 billion? We swear on our Facebook profile we could not!

Could we have shamanized that Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang would have promised there were no sacred cows at the struggling Internet giant, even though there apparently are herds of them? It’s a mooot point that we would have been unable to do so.

Could we have guessed that Apple stock would be up 135%? You can iTouch my iPhone if I am lying!

Could we have foreseen that a devastating writers’ strike in Hollywood would be waged over nonexistent Web revenues? It’s a tale we could not have created, even with special effects.

Could we have pontificated that Google would take on the cellphone industry? You can ring our bell, but no, ma’am.

Could we have imagined that unusually enthusiastic entrepreneur Mark Cuban would lose his step on “Dancing With the Stars”?

Well, OK, we figured that one out, right after watching the painful “I Dream of Jeannie” dance number, pictured here. (But then again, we were rooting for Marie Osmond.)

But one exec, who shall remain nameless (you know who you are!), questioned my accounting of it. Specifically, he asserted that my day count is way off, so I immediately began an investigation into my back-dating practices.

And I am exonerated! Here’s why:

I peg the start of Vision Quest to when Yang made his 100-day declaration and also said there were “no sacred cows” at the company. Actually, there are apparently a rather large herd of them mooing away, but that’s a post for another day.

Nonetheless, this declaration took place on July 17 in Yahoo’s second-quarter earnings conference call.

Given he had just uttered the line, I decided to start the clock the next day on July 18, so Yang could get a good night’s rest to allow him to see Yahoo with fresh-as-a-daisy eyes.

In addition, because I know time is precious, I included all weekend days and holidays (no rest for the desperate!) too. I started my own countdown on Day 37, in this post.

So, as I see it, my finger-pointing Yahoo exec has falsely accused me. It is now Day 64 and we are almost two-thirds through the process.

And, as I have also promised, depending on news out of Yahoo, we’re sticking with Yang until the end, which by my calculations will fall on Oct. 25.

Note to Yang: Only 36 shopping days left!