Yahoo's Bartz is bullish in TV interview

IN AN INTERVIEW with CNBC's newsroom, Yahoo's CEO Carol Bartz implied that the company's former chief executive Jerry Yang was "stupid" for turning down Microsoft's initial offers to buy the firm last year.

Bartz joined Yahoo in January from Autodesk and immediately set about putting her stamp on the troubled company. Now, some nine months later, in a congenial CNBC Squawkbox interview, she was bullish about her role and where she sees the pioneering Internet search portal and advertising firm making an impact.

One thing Bartz would have changed, had she assumed her position earlier, was the final selling price of the firm to Microsoft. Responding to a question from the show hosts on whether she would have taken Microsoft's original bid, Bartz replied, "Sure. You think I'm stupid? Let's see, 15 or 34? Yeah, I think so."

Regardless, she asserted that the final deal was good for Yahoo as it will allow the firm to concentrate on two things, innovation and revenues. "We can take costs down and still take 80 per cent of the revenues," she said. "And we can add focus to where we add value." Which apparently is in contextual or, as she called it, 'emotional' advertising.

Bartz was a bit woolly about how the firm will innovate, suggesting only that what Internet users need is a one-stop online destination for all their relevant information and material. Something that sounds a lot like the old portal or MyYahoo approach to us.

Possibly referring to Google's bleak, minimalist homepage as search query design, she said, "I don't wake up in the morning and say 'Gosh what am I going to search?' I wake up and say 'what's happening?'"

In order to make her company's new look MyYahoo more popular, since the old version was adopted by only 15 per cent of users, Bartz said that the firm has made it easier for lazy bones users to add more features, because apparently no one could be bothered to do that with the old version.

Groundbreaking stuff, to be sure. µ