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suicide? how?

which is better? giving up the areas in which yahoo can't win, getting a good deal in return and concentrating on the areas they are strong in or trying to fight a losing battle, sinking millions of dollars in the process?

His logic seems to be 'search is very important so yahoo shouldn't give up its second place'. It doesn't matter search is uber important, what matters is whether yahoo can keep its place. They certainly feel they can't, so its very sensible to get out before the going gets really bad.

good business is all about deciding which areas to play, and knowing when to leave




I agree with you, but imho Yahoo should have made these decisions years ago. Yahoo has clearly made a lot of bets it hasn't been able to follow through on (acquisition bets alone tell a sorry tale: Broadcast, Geocities, Inktomi, Overture).

When I was at Yahoo during the "dot bomb" crash. Yahoo was scrambling to decrease its reliance on advertising and made a big push into premium/paid subscriptions. Well that fizzled. As did Terry Semel's entertainment strategy and the subsequent attempt to go toe-to-toe with GOOG.

Personally, I like the entertainment/media portal strategy (out of the remaining options available). But at this point it still feels like Yahoo is being pushed into this strategy rather than boldy pushing forward with it. I think that's partially why it feals more like defeat/retreat at this point than anything else. Present-day Yahoo just can't shake that feeling of failure/lost opportunity in the eyes of many observers. That's gonna hound them for a long time until they can garner up a bona fide hit.




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