After months of searching, Yahoo has announced that Scott Thompson will take the helm of the struggling Internet company. The 54-year-old Thompson comes from PayPal, where he was President of the mobile payment processing company. He held his first conference call Wednesday morning and was upbeat about the future of Yahoo.
It’s too early to comment on Thompson’s strategy as he doesn’t have one yet. He’ll officially assume his role as CEO and join Yahoo’s board of directors on January 9th. During the next few months, he’ll learn more about Yahoo’s products and its executive team. Thompson will talk further about his plan for Yahoo during the company’s Q1 2012 earnings conference call which will take place in April.
Hopefully, he will expand Yahoo’s influence in the mobile arean over the next year. Unlike its rivals Google and Microsoft, Yahoo does not have a strong mobile presence. Yes, it has apps for the major mobile platforms, but it doesn’t integrate into the mobile operating systems like Google Search and Bing.
Microsoft has Windows Phone, a vector for it to expand Bing Maps and Bing search. Google has Android, which it uses for Google Search, Voice, Docs and Maps. Google also has a deal with Apple which uses Google Maps as it primary mapping solution.What does Yahoo have?
Yahoo doesn’t have its own mobile OS (unless it uses the now open source webOS), so it can’t do what Microsoft is doing with Windows Phone. It could try to pull off a Google and get better exposure on a manufacturer’s handset or offer a service that everyone wants to use.Finding its niche in the mobile space is important, but it’s only one of many things Yahoo has to do if it wants to turn itself around.
[WSJ]