雅虎很伟大,但并非不可颠覆!

liuhuafang.jpg杨致远在致股东的信中最后说道:“This is a great company and we are moving quickly to make it even better.”笔者心中不觉地产生一阵酸楚的感觉:杨致远作为华人的骄傲,我始终充满着敬意和期待,不过作为一个独立的评论分析人,我认为雅虎的独立性是最重要的,伟大并不意味着不可颠覆,因为曾经的altavista也很伟大、netscape很伟大、DOS很伟大。

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。

裁员是正确的,但是不能只是财报的原因!雅虎的结构不如谷歌更贴近网络,笔者甚至怀疑:雅虎的高层自己是否对雅虎文化的未来有清晰的构想?

杨致远与张朝阳

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。

收购对马云的影响

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。

雅虎需要新形象、新口号

其实柳华芳是个很呆板的人,不过现在的年轻人都不像我那样,现在的年轻人与过去很不同,笔者有理由认为雅虎需要根据各国各年龄的社会心理来重新审视一下自己的价值观。

雅虎很伟大,但并非不可颠覆。一个女人选择男人并非看他多么雄伟,而是他是否能给她快乐。

不看历史的人,经常重复历史;沉溺于历史的人,经常被历史遗弃!

————————————————————————————————————杨致远原信:——

杨致远Yahoo has just released the following letter to shareholders outlining its reasoning for rejecting Microsoft’s offer to buy the company. In it, CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang emphasizes Yahoo’s strengths as both an online destination and an advertising network, and argues that Yahoo is better off going it alone than combining with Microsoft. He states: “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.”

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.

Here is the full text of the letter:

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&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&T, 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

柳华芳
柳华芳

奔向光明之地

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