The internet company Yahoo! has postponed its annual meeting as it grapples with the prospect of a shareholder rebellion in which as many as 30 candidates may try their luck in getting elected to its board of directors. A potentially rowdy gathering in California was due to be held on July 3 but Yahoo! has put it off to an unspecified date ”expected to be around the end of July 2008”.
Wall Street expects Microsoft to enter a protracted period of ”trench warfare” in its attempt to buy Yahoo! after the failure of its three-month-long attempt to bring the online company’s board to the negotiating table. It is expected to launch a proxy battle and try to oust the Yahoo! executive team while encouraging investors to accept its original -a-share offer.
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/ 2 February 2008
With a market value of -billion, Google’s power has become awe-inspiring. Its profits rocketed by 40% to ,2-billion last year and it swallowed the popular video-sharing website YouTube. Through Microsoft’s ,6-billion takeover bid for Yahoo!, the technology establishment hit back at Google’s seemingly unstoppable rise.
Yahoo! has retooled its online search engine to make it more helpful and engaging, joining an industrywide wave of improvements that so far haven’t dented Google’s dominance. It regards the upgrade announced on Tuesday as the most significant change to its search engine since it reclaimed control of the underlying technology.