Yahoo China chief quits after six weeks

[bill]

Xie Wen replaced as president by former Alibaba exec [infoworld.com]
The top executive at Yahoo China resigned from his job for "personal reasons" after six weeks on the job, Yahoo's local partner Alibaba.com said in a statement Monday. Free IT resource

Xie Wen joined Yahoo China as president on Oct. 17. Alibaba did not offer details surrounding his decision to leave the company.

Following his resignation, Xie will continue to serve as a consultant to Alibaba, the Chinese Internet company said. Xie is replaced by Zeng Ming, a senior vice president of Alibaba, who has been involved with strategic planning for Yahoo China since joining the company in August.

That's an awfully short tenure. I'm sure the rumor mill is just warming up on this one. Any speculation in the Chinese media as to why Mr. Xie resigned?

[redstorm]

Well, Xie enjoys high reputation in the Mainland IT field. No media has disclosed the reason that leads to Xie's resign till now. Maybe it will be hidden for quite a long term. To give it a good explanation, we are required to connect this matter with the global performance of Yahoo Giant? I am not sure :D

[bill]

Some more details on this in a recent Business Week article:

Yahoo! China, Out of the Game? [businessweek.com]

What's behind Xie's sudden departure? Yahoo! China would not comment beyond a terse press statement. But many people who follow the industry believe that Xie left because he and Yang couldn't see eye to eye about Yahoo! China's future. Xie had proposed a change in focus for Yahoo! China, which has been struggling in the Chinese search market and is not a leader among the portals either.

Xie wanted to try a Web 2.0 strategy, addressing the exploding demand for user-generated content. Yang wanted to stick to the company's portal model and, unimpressed by Xie's strategy, forced him out.

This article is much more damning of Yahoo's performance in the China market than most I have read. After reading this I notice a lot of the developments we have discussed here have not turned out positive for Yahoo at all.