After nearly three years, Carol Bartz was fired as CEO of Yahoo. Timothy Morse has been temporarily appointed to lead the company. Bartz communicated the news to Yahoo employees via email. "I am very saddened to inform you that I have just been fired with a phone call from the chairman of the board." The change was welcomed by the market, which reacted, rewarding the stock with a 6% jump in after-hour trading.
During the years of Bartz's direction, profits had increased mainly thanks to a substantial reduction in personnel costs, but the company had failed to increase the volume of business and the advertising market, suffering from competition from Google. Numerous industry observers criticized Bartz's work, accusing her of wreaking havoc on the company's technology and product divisions.
