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You may be right in thinking that we’re a bit Google-centric in these parts. It’s not bias, rather a reflection of their dominance in the search engine landscape.
Nowadays, all you hear from Yahoo! is mergers, buyouts or job cuts. As the BBC reports:
Yahoo has confirmed that it is cutting its workforce by 4% or 600 people.
The internet firm has now announced redundancies four times in three years, as it cuts costs to try to lift profits that trail bigger rival Google.
The redundancies also follow after Google recently announced a 10% pay increase for every member of staff.
In 2008 Yahoo rejected a $47.5bn (£30bn) bid from Microsoft. Today its market capitalisation – the combined value of its shares – totals $21.68bn.
Yahoo said in a statement: “Today’s personnel changes are part of our ongoing strategy to best position Yahoo for revenue growth and margin expansion, and to support our strategy to deliver differentiated products to the marketplace.”
The company’s revenues have risen by less than 2% so far this year, compared with growth of 23% at Google.
Maggie Shiels, the BBC’s technology reporter in Silicon Valley, said: “The Yahoo job cuts come in stark contrast to what is happening in Silicon Valley as a whole, where companies like Google and Facebook have embarked on an aggressive hiring spree.
Yahoo had 14,100 employees at the end of September.
UPDATE: Not only is Yahoo! cutting its staff, but also the ‘dead wood’ from its product offerings. Not that they’re using such violent terminology themselves. They’re not even saying retiring, but ‘sunsetting’. Those core services include:
- MyBlogLog
- Yahoo! Picks
- AltaVista
- Yahoo! Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Delicious
Great round-up of the pruning of Yahoo! from the Guardian here.
