January 19, 2009 by James Oliver
As you may remember, last week we reported on the hiring of Carol Bartz as the new Yahoo CEO. Well, the industry has had time to absorb the news and feedback from the press and analysts is mixed.
As we told you last week, there is widespread concern amongst industry insiders that she lacks experience in this side of the consumer Internet market. That said, however, there are also plenty of voices applauding Yahoo for taking the risk and appointing a strong, wilful personality as their CEO. The argument is that the struggling company needs forceful leadership from somebody willing to take the hard decisions. Bartz, by all accounts, is that kind of leader.
As far as what she is actually going to do, it is obviously too early to make any firm predictions, though she is certainly ambitious; her stated aim is to put Yahoo on top of all its markets.
There is also talk that a change in leader will reopen the lines of communication between Yahoo and Microsoft though it would be wise to take those predictions with a pinch of salt. The Microsoft-Yahoo saga has had numerous false dawns over the past months and this could easily be another one, especially as Microsoft are remaining quiet on the issue and Bartz has said nothing at all yet to indicate that is her intention.
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