Carol Bartz Begins To Deliver At Yahoo

It has indeed been just about six weeks since veteran AutoDesk CEO & Chairman Carol Bartz took the helm at Yahoo. I wrote, in closing that post,

"In any case, Bartz is already taking charge and making it clear she'll be the one running Yahoo and doing the talking. And more than likely, her counterparts elsewhere realize the days of pushing the hapless internet company around are over."

Looking at the nearby Yahoo-sourced price chart for the company, compared with Microsoft and the S&P500 Index, you can see that Yahoo is the only one of the three that is higher now than it was in late January.

In fact, this morning on CNBC, technology reporter Jim Goldman reported that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's comments on his firm's market share loss to Apple, and his desire to do some deal with Yahoo, drove his company's equity price even lower, while Yahoo rose again.

According to Goldman, the more Ballmer talks about wanting a deal with Yahoo, the lower his company's stock falls, while he gives Bartz' firm's equity price a boost.

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a fairly in-depth piece on Bartz' rapid moves at her new firm. She's making significant organizational changes, searching for selected new senior executives, such as a chief marketing officer.

It's very clear from the article that Yahoo's board is getting exactly what Bartz promised, and was expected to deliver. An adult with common sense and experience is now quickly moving to make the firm's moves more coherent and sensible. She's not making a knee-jerk decision on the firm's search engine and business, but she is, evidently, making fast progress on determining what she will do with it, soliciting information from both lower- and senior-managers to assist her in that effort.

This focused energy, alone, has apparently been sufficient to give Yahoo's shares a boost for the first time in recent memory, excepting when it was due to rumors of a sale of the firm.

Too bad the board was asleep for so long, first letting Terry Semel dawdle while the firm's fortunes waned, then stupidly replacing him with differently-, but equally-inept co-founder Jerry Yang.

It took a few years.....yes, years.....but at least Yahoo's board finally delivered for its battered remaining shareholders. It's probably a good bet that, whatever the longer term outcome for Yahoo, Carol Bartz will make it better for her shareholders than it was going to be before she arrived.