胡紫薇事件让国人重新审视价值观的问题，一个世纪大国应该能够输出价值观。其实，一个伟大的公司何尝不是的呢？谷歌的成功很大程度上取决于他们的价值观，因为笔者认为企业的价值观决定着企业的组织结构和文化。谷歌的理想主义和长尾认识成就了他们的持久的创新力和市场驱动力，而反观雅虎则是跟着屁股走、创新力低下，同时雅虎的文化与价值观也变得臃肿和迷茫，雅虎的高层的判断上总是落伍。
笔者之所以把它们放在一起，是因为雅虎的困境也曾经困扰过张朝阳，搜狐过去一年的变化有目共睹，张朝阳的选择是正确的。反观雅虎，杨致远也应该果敢些，认清形势，果断出手，如果过于忧虑，把太多精力放在为华尔街烦恼，那么雅虎就是相当危险的。
如果雅虎高层决策能力一直落后，那么雅虎根本不值400亿，笔者认为互联网公司的核心是价值观与人才，而雅虎这两方面都不具备优势，同时雅虎的产品策划与推广存在严重问题，我对杨致远说雅虎是用户滞留时间最长的网站非常怀疑。雅虎的高层似乎不知道雅虎的方向，他们推荐长尾理论但是自己没有实践，而谷歌却知道蚂蚁雄兵的道理。
收购如果成功，杨致远未必是雅虎的CEO，那么马云也是有可能离开阿里巴巴，但是笔者认为收购对阿里集团有好处。虽然阿里是oracle的用户，但是马云的电子商务资源对于微软是可以想到的，微软有很多产品要卖。不过，刚忙完上市的马云恐怕不愿意换伙伴——一个垄断了一个时代的伙伴。
He says that even though Yahoo is the No. 1 Web destination, his
goal is to increase visits by 15 percent annually. Re-emphasizing
his strategy of being the key starting point on the Web, he adds,
“we are particularly excited about our growth prospects in mobile,
the biggest emerging starting point in the world.” (We could have
told you that). All in all, the letter is pretty much a
formality without any major new arguments, but it does put Yahoo’s
best face forward to its shareholders. We’re No. 1, Yang is
saying, and we don’t need Microsoft. What he doesn’t explain is
how Yahoo got into this pickle in the first place.
Dear Stockholders,On February 1, 2008, Microsoft
made an unsolicited proposal to acquire your company. As much has
been reported in the press recently, I wanted to reach out to you
personally to let you know why your Board of Directors, after a
careful review by Yahoo!’s management along with our financial and
legal advisors, believes that Microsoft’s proposal substantially
undervalues Yahoo! and is not in the best interests of our
stockholders.Most importantly, I want you to know that
your Board is continuously evaluating all of Yahoo!’s strategic
options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry
environment, and we remain committed to pursuing initiatives that
maximize value for all our stockholders.We have a unique
combination of strengths
– Yahoo! is one of the most recognizable and admired brands in
the world. We have over 500 million users (nearly 1 out of every 2
internet users worldwide). In the U.S., we are # 1 in many of the
most used online services including personalized home pages, mail,
news, music, shopping and travel. Because we have leadership
positions in so many indispensable online services, users spend
more time on Yahoo! sites than anywhere else online.
– Yahoo! is an attractive partner for marketers. Yahoo! is #1
in online display advertising, which represents 90% of the
advertising inventory on the web, and we are also a leader in
search marketing and a pioneer in the growing fields of mobile
advertising and online video advertising. Through Yahoo!,
advertisers can now connect with consumers on our owned sites as
well as those of our growing network of partners including eBay,
Comcast, AT&am
T,
a consortium of over 600 newspapers, Forbes.com, Cars.com, WebMD
and more.
– Yahoo! has the financial flexibility to execute our plans,
thanks to our healthy cash balance, which exceeded $2 billion as of
December 31, 2007, and our substantial operating cash flow, which
we expect to grow double digits in 2009.
– Yahoo! has made important investments in our core computing
infrastructure enabling us to dramatically increase the speed of
our search engine updates even while handling vast and growing
quantities of data.
– In addition, we have the added value of our substantial,
unconsolidated investments in Japan and China. We have substantial
positions in Yahoo! Japan, the leader in its market, and Alibaba,
which is strongly positioned in China, a market with enormous
growth potential.
These assets–our brand and its audience, our relationships with
marketers, our financial strength, our technology, and our
strategic investments–are the core of our value and our leadership
position in the industry.
We have a huge market opportunity - and are uniquely positioned
to capitalize on it
The global online advertising market is projected to grow from
$45 billion in 2007 to $75 billion in 2010. And we are moving
quickly to take advantage of what we see as a unique window of time
in the growth - and evolution - of this market to build market
share and to create value for stockholders.
We are executing our strategy - and making headway
We have taken significant but disciplined steps to refocus our
business on our objectives to become the starting point for the
most consumers and the must buy for the most advertisers and
enhance Yahoo!’s long-term performance.
Starting Point Objective: Our goal is to grow visits to key
Yahoo! starting points and properties, where users enter the
Internet, by 15% per year over the next several years. We are the
most visited site in the U.S., and we continue to grow - we
experienced double-digit growth in U.S. users in 2007 on our
Yahoo.com home page.
In addition to traditional starting points on the PC - including
our home pages, mail, My Yahoo! and search, we are particularly
excited about our growth prospects in mobile, the biggest emerging
starting point in the world. Globally, there are twice as many
users of mobile devices as users of personal computers, and mobile
advertising is projected to grow substantially in the coming years.
We have an important competitive edge as the number one mobile
destination in the U.S., and we are building a superior mobile
experience for Yahoo! users globally so we can further capitalize
on this opportunity.
Must Buy Objective: We are working to make online advertising
easier and more effective for marketers, opening up new ways for
them to connect with consumers. We’ve successfully completed the
global roll-out of our search marketing system, Panama, which
improved the search experience for our users, boosted returns for
our advertisers, and increased revenue for Yahoo!. Last year, we
bought Right Media, an exchange that enables buyers and sellers of
online advertising to come together. Another 2007 acquisition, Blue
Lithium, brings us best-in-class performance marketing
capabilities, complementing Yahoo!’s existing offerings for
advertisers. We also integrated our search advertising and display
advertising sales forces, creating a one-stop shop for all of
advertisers’ online marketing needs. All of these - Panama, Right
Media, Blue Lithium, and our combined sales efforts - complement
and enhance Yahoo!’s existing capabilities and will make it easier
for advertisers and online publishers to buy and sell advertising
online.
We are also creating a unique and valuable network of premium
websites to serve our advertisers. We are making it easier for our
advertisers to provide interesting and relevant offers to our users
by combining advertising space on Yahoo!’s owned sites with that
from a growing group of premium partners including eBay, Comcast,
AT&amT,
a consortium of over 600 newspapers and many others.
As we reach more users both on our own websites and on the sites
of our premium partners, and better monetize the ad space on
Yahoo!’s owned and operated sites, we are striving to increase the
percentage of total online advertising demand we touch from an
estimated 15% in 2007 to 20% over the next several years.
These key strategies will be enhanced by our adoption of new,
more open technology platforms that will encourage the development
of new applications and the involvement of third-party developers -
and help enrich the user experience.
We have accomplished a great deal in a very short time - and we
are focused on building this momentum
Today, Yahoo! is a faster-moving, better-organized, more nimble
company than it was just a few months ago. We have redeployed our
resources to drive Yahoo!’s key strategic priorities - taking
important steps to streamline our organization and close down or
scale back businesses that don’t support these critical growth
initiatives. The fact is that we are well on our way to
transforming the experiences of Yahoo!’s users, advertisers,
publishers and developers - an important shift that is at the heart
of our plan to create stockholder value.
I want you to know that the Yahoo! Board of Directors and
management team remain committed to pursuing initiatives that
maximize value for all our Yahoo! stockholders. This is a great
company and we are moving quickly to make it even better.
Jerry Yang