Yahoo CEO Yang: Negotiating With Shareholders Is 'Fun'

Microsoft is the company that has ruled out a merger for now, not Yahoo, according to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, who spoke on Wednesday as The Wall Street Journal?s "D: All Things Digital" conference in Carlsbad, Calif.Since full-blown acquisition talks were called off earlier this month, the two companies have been discussing a new deal involving Yahoo's search-advertising business. At the same time, investor Carl Icahn is leading shareholders against Yahoo's current board; at one point, Yang called those negotiations "fun."

Joining Yang at the conference was Yahoo president Susan Decker. Both acknowledged getting too close to the company's products and too far from its customers. Their plans call for a more narrowly focused Web services firm that's banking on Internet display advertising, as well as becoming the launching pad for travels in cyberspace for hundreds of millions of Web surfers.The New York Times, Reuters