Carol Bartz just wrapped up her
first quarterly conference call as Yahoo!' Inc.'s [
YHOO] new CEO and managed to deftly dance around the big questions facing the company, including what her plans are for Yahoo!'s search business.
"My job is to make sure that as a company we look at anything that makes sense in the long term," Bartz told analysts."Search is like a house: There is different rooms, all of it is part of a complex that allows users to search and advertisers to monetize that search, and us to get money for that.
"We need to figure out how to make this asset stronger, whether we keep it or sell it," she added. Bartz added that "search is a very valuable part of our business."
The new CEO, two weeks into her tenure after taking the reins from co-founder Jerry Yang (who was on the call but didn't say a word), did say that her prime concern for the company was its complexity.
"This organization is very complex and therefore it is hard for people to get speedy answers and make decisions," Bartz said.
When asked when she might start making some key strategic decisions, Bartz couldn't help but quip: "I thought I'd buy the New York Times tomorrow."
Yahoo! chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen felt compelled to pipe in and say Bartz was only kidding.
As far as last quarter's numbers go, the company an operating loss of $278 million compared to operating income of $191 million in the fourth quarter of 2007. Citing economic uncertainty, Yahoo! did not give a full year revenue estimate as it has in the past, but said that its first quarter 2009 revenues would fall between $1.525 billion and $1.725 billion.
-- Olaf de Senerpont Domis
See Jan. 27 earnings release from Yahoo!
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