Rebuilding Yahoo will be a long slog, not a quick repair, said new CEO Carol Bartz, who suggested acquisitions may help.
A prototype of Yahoo's new homepage
Bartz said she’s seen improvements in Yahoo’s ailing search business, and noted that any negotiations on a partnership with Microsoft will be conducted in private, not public.
“We have absolutely stabilized search,” she said at a Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco. “We have been investing.”
Bartz, who joined the company in January, went on to say search data is “extremely important” to the company and that she would never “de-bone” Yahoo of that material.
Nonetheless, “everything’s open for examination,” she said referring to Yahoo’s sprawling list of products. The company now has a Wall of Shame, where poorly performing products are placed and where decision to fix or dispose of them are made. (By the way, Bartz said she is a user of Google Maps.)
One new product – Yahoo’s new homepage – is a welcome change, with features to let third-party companies have an appearance and to let users customize it to their tastes. “Our homepage right now is very old fashioned,” she said.
With respect to advertising, some parts of the market are showing stabilization, but “damn straight, it’s a tough business,” she said.
At the same time, the downturn could create opportunities to pick up distressed companies at attractive prices, she said.
Posted by Mark Boslet 
