WebProNews » Marco Boerries

Yahoo To Lose Top Exec

Doug Caverly — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:36:14 +0000

It looks like (in more than one sense) poor old Yahoo still hasn’t plugged all of its leaks. Marco Boerries, Executive Vice President of the Connected Life Division, is going to quit, and word of the move escaped a little earlier than he and CEO Carol Bartz might have liked.

Since Boerries is one of 13 people pictured on the official page of Yahoo’s management team, his departure just plain looks bad. Worse yet, the Connected Life Division controls all of Yahoo’s efforts in the mobile market, and only yesterday, a report from The Kelsey Group stressed how much said market will be worth in a few years.

Marco Boerries

Also, as Kara Swisher reports, the last sentence of Boerries’s leaked goodbye email reads, "Please keep this very confidential and do not share until the official announcement later this week!"

But the development isn’t catastrophic. Boerries, who’s known for traveling back and forth between Germany and California, hasn’t admitted to being lured away by Google or anything like that, and instead wrote, "Most of you know about my personal situation, the ‘living in 2 continents’ and the importance of my family to me. I cannot reconcile these personal needs, my future plans and ambitions and Yahoo! anymore. And that’s why it is time to say good bye."

Some compliments for the company and his coworkers then followed.

There aren’t any signs as to who might replace Boerries at this point.

Yahoo Wants Mobile Ads, Not The OS

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:14:03 +0000

Now that the Google Phone hype has proven an operating system play for mobile devices, Yahoo’s strategy of grabbing advertisers for the handset could be a competitive edge.

Yahoo will be pleased with grabbing the brand advertisers who can pay handsomely for mobile display ads, while Google tweaks its phone software and its alliance of partners developing for it.

Reuters said Yahoo’s Marco Boerries thinks Google is being distracted by technology instead of focusing on the advertising that provides virtually all of their revenue.

Meanwhile, Yahoo has been able to close deals with several hardware makers to place its oneSearch product on handsets. They signed up Telefonica and its 100 million-plus subscribers, a big win for oneSearch.

Yahoo received praise for its strategy from RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan, who suggested to Reuters the strategy of focusing on distribution deals looks like the right approach.

In contrast, Boerries believes Google could run into issues when negotiating revenue sharing with carriers who may end up with a Google-powered phone in their lineups.

That point falls in with our line of thinking about Google, and the way its mobile product can matter if Google runs the network, something they seem to have the resources to accomplish. Right now, Yahoo has some momentum on the mobile side, even if it isn’t accompanied by the same hype as Google’s work.