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"We don't think it's reasonable to assume we're going to gain a lot of share from Google," Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker said in an interview. "It's not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share."
I'm sure the shareholders will just eat that one up.
Either that or fire Susan Decker.
TJ
If the former, their execution leaves much to be desired. If the latter, well, that has to be about the dumbest way of using misdirection I've ever seen.
If the statement reflects the actual mindset of the brass at Y!, even if they think it, they shouldn't say it.
It is really pathetic to see how huge corporation that can easily afford to put 100s of millions of $$$s into R&D not even trying hard.
Yahoo going for the underdog approach?
Shareholders and analysts should demand her resignation. How would you like to work at Yahoo on their search engine technology and have someone state that they really don't think they can catch Google? To me it's like admitting that the Google folks are smarter than yours.
>>"We would be very happy to maintain our market share."
And what does that statement mean? That they are lucky to have the share they already have? Yahoo! do yourself a favor and keep her away from the press.
As a CFO she should know better - did they get downgraded yet?
Very puzzling indeed... Unless it was made to throw Google off somehow. Misinformation if you will.
Who knows... I'd be a little peeved if I owned Y! shares though. lol
Freq---
A: Susan Drecker does not have a backup career in public relations.
B: Oh yea, as a shareholder, I'm thrilled to hear they are throwing in the towel on making any gains in the industry and are happy to keep status quo. <sarcasm>
Dreckermay become a verb ..as in to "drecker" ones share price , company or employees efforts ;)
Susan Drecker does not have a backup career in public relations
LOL - nice one sugarrae....
Why don't Yahoo and MSN just do what Google did... offer shed loads of wonga and good share options to the best people to get them to come over to them...
You can bet their share price will go down on this little statement! What a bunch of muppets... who gave her the tannoy
Since when has yahoo put that kind of money into R&D? Buy Goto/Overture, AllTheWeb, Inktomi, and Altavista was simply taking those players off the board so that Microsoft couldn't have them as weapons.
> And what does that statement mean?
It means they are getting their butt kicked and everyone knows it. Not to come out publicly and say it, would be an admission they can't read the market.
> Susan Drecker does not have a backup career in public relations.
I have little doubt that the statement came from on high - she fell on a sword here.
To me, the more interesting is the second, that being....
We would be very happy to maintain our market share."
Which sounds like a sideways admission that losing share is a distinct possiblity.
It's one thing to find gaining share difficult, it's another to find keeping share difficult.
Booooooooo!
Yahoo has an advantage in site stickiness, and they need to exploit that - they should work to insure that no Yahoo user goes to Google to search.
Search is still important to Yahoo's business model, and a negative statement like this seems kind of dumb. "Yeah, those guys are just better than we are... we might as well give up."
On the other hand, business history is littered with failed firms that pursued quixotic efforts out of pride or just bad judgment, and paid the price in the long run.
Still, any sports fan will tell you that a team that gets conservative and doesn't play to win but tries to play "not to lose" ends up doing just that... losing. Can you recruit top people if you are striving to be second best? Can you motivate your current people to achieve greatness if they think management is happy with being #2? I don't like this strategy.
I do agree with that. But, how the *hell* this type of statement appeared to anyone inside as a "good thing" to come out with is beyond me.
>>>Having an honest executive is ... refreshing
I can see that standpoint. But as a shareholder, I have a biased view and agenda on what I want people to hear. ;-)
>>>How would sports fans feel
That puts my feelings into a nutshell.
Really not sure, if google would believe this...!
Cheers
If Ms. Decker had wanted to elaborate on her remarks, she might have added: "Unlike Google, we've never relied on spidered search as our core business--we're an Internet-based media company, not a tool vendor."
Mind you, I'm not suggesting that Google is just a tool vendor, but Yahoo might not mind planting that idea in reporters' and investors minds. :-)
It's obvious that Yahoo has lost focus on the search market - little to nothing of significance has been done since Yahoo search went live. Perhaps their objectives were different than we had assumed; never having wanted to be the #1, but just not having to rely & pay Google.
Back when Google were providing Yahoo with their search results, Yahoo were were being paid by Google so that they would display their ads, but they might have had a feeling that the tables would turn when Google got more popular and didn't need Yahoo so much for ad impressions, since the content network was coming up, plus a plethora of people running to Google for Search.
Yahoo just wanted to make sure that the Google/Yahoo relationship didn't become more of a reliance for search results. If Google had wanted to charge them a fortune, there would have been 2 options: Ditch google (and have no search results, thus loosing visitors), or build their own search service.
Considering they haven't promoted it that well, nor upgraded it so much - that does seem like the most likely option - it was just a substitute for Google. Most Yahoo users probably wouldn't know the difference anyway - since those that did know about search quality were already searching at Google!
Nevertheless, I don't think you'd hear Bill Gates or Eric Schmidt saying that they have no chance of catching up on their competition.
I was really enjoying this upcoming search engine wars (Google vs Yahoo vs MSN) but now they seem to have thrown in the towel.
I used to think Yahoo was going to burst back into the search world with some great technology, but now I think they will just fade out of importance in the next 5-6 years only to be bought by Microsoft.
